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THE THIEF 
OF BAGDAD 



















“The Thief of Bagdad”—(Douglas Fairbanks). 












t J 

THE THIEF OF 
BAGDAD 

BY 

ACHMED ABDULLAH' 

II 

The Writer of Many Lands 
and Many People 


Based on 

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS* 
Fantasy of the Arabian Nights 



ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES 
FROM THE PHOTO PLAY 


NEW YORK 

THE H. K. FLY COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 





Copyright, 1924, by 
The H. K. Fly Company 


*7 

Based on 



DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS’ 
Fantasy of the Arabian Nights 
BY 

ELTON THOMAS 1 

Copyright, 1924, by 
Douglas Fairbanks 

and a short version 

BY 

LOTTA WOODS 

Copyright, 1924, by 
Douglas Fairbanks 


Made in U. S. A. 


Jill. 31’24 


) Cl A 8 013 21 > 

JL , 



To 

Jean Wick 














CHAPTER I 


In the Orient’s motley, twisted annals the 
tale of Ahmed el-Bagdadi’s—“the Thief of 
Bagdad,” as he is called in the ancient records 
—search for happiness, which is by the same 
token the tale of his adventures and exploits 
and love, has assumed in the course of time the 
character of something homeric, something epic 
and fabulous, something close-woven to the gol¬ 
den loom of the desert in both pattern and 
sweep of romance. 

It is mentioned with pride by his own tribe, 
the Benni Hussaynieh, a raucous-tongued, 
hard-riding breed of Bedawins, brittle of honor 
and greedy of gain, of whom—due to a father, 
tired of the sterile Arabian sands and eager for 
the pleasures of bazar and marketplace—he 
was the city-bred descendant. It is spoken of 
with a mixture of awe and envy by the Hon¬ 
orable Guild of Bagdad Thieves of whom he 
was once a keen and highly respected member. 
It is wide-blown through the flaps of the no- 
9 


10 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


mads’ black felt tents from Mecca to Jeddah 
and beyond; berry-brown, wizen old women 
cackle its gliding gossip as they bray the cof¬ 
fee for the morning meal or rock the blown-up 
milk skins upon their knees till the butter rolls 
yellow and frothing; and, on the sun-cracked 
lips of the cameleers, on the honeyed, lying lips 
of overland traders and merchants, the tale has 
drifted South as far as the Sahara, North to 
the walls of grey, stony Bokhara, Southeast 
and Northeast to Pekin’s carved dragon gates 
and the orchid plains and ochre mountains of 
Hindustan, and West to the pleasant, odorous 
gardens of Morocco where garrulous white- 
beards comment upon it as they digest the 
brave deeds of the past in the curling, blue 
smoke of their water-pipes. 

“Wah hyat Ullah —as God liveth!” their tell¬ 
ing begins. “This Ahmed el-Bagdadi—what a 
keen lad he was! A deer in running! A cat in 
climbing! A snake in twisting! A hawk in 
pouncing! A dog in scenting! Fleet as a hare! 
Stealthy as a fox! Tenacious as a wolf! Brave 
as a lion! Strong as an elephant in mating¬ 
time!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD II 


Or, taking a blade of grass between thumb 
and second finger, another ancient will ex¬ 
claim: 

“Wall hyat hatha el-awd wah er-rub el - 
mabood —by the life of this stem and the 
blessed Lord God! Never, in all Islam, lived 
there one to equal Ahmed the Thief in quality 
and pride, the scope and exquisite charm of his 
thievery!” 

Or perhaps: 

“Wah hyat duqny —by the honor of these my 
whiskers! Once, O True Believers, it hap¬ 
pened in Bagdad the Golden! Aye—may I 
eat dirt—may I not be father to my sons if I 
lie! But once, indeed, it happened in Bagdad 
the Golden!” 

And then the full, rich tale. The wondrous 
ending. 

Yet the tale’s original cause was simple 
enough, consisting in the snatching of a well- 
filled purse, a hungry belly craving food, and 
the jerk and pull of a magic rope woven from 
the hair of a purple-faced witch of the left- 
handed sect; while the scene was the Square of 


12 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


the One-Eyed Jew—thus called for reasons lost 
in the mists of antiquity—in the heart of Bag¬ 
dad. 

Across the South end of the Square straddled 
the Mosque of Seven Swords, raised on a flight 
of broad marble steps as on a base, lifting the 
apex of its wide horseshoe gateway fifty feet 
into the air, its walls untwining sinuous arabes¬ 
ques of yellow and elfin-green faience beneath 
the pigeon-blue glare of the sky, its lonely mina¬ 
ret lovely and pointed and snowy-white. East 
the latticed Bazar of the Red Sea Traders 
filtered the sun on rugs and silks, on copper 
vessels and jewelry and thin gold-inlaid per¬ 
fume bottles, in an ever-shifting saraband of 
shadows, rose and purple and sapphire and 
purest emerald. North a broad, tree-lined ave¬ 
nue swept on toward the palace of the Caliph of 
the Faithful that etched the horizon with a tor¬ 
tured abandon of spires and turrets and barti¬ 
zans. West squatted a packed wilderness of 
narrow, cobbled alleys; a labyrinth of flat- 
roofed Arab houses with dead-white walls fac¬ 
ing the street, but blossoming toward the inner 
courtyards with palm and olive and rose-bush. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 13 


Here, too, was the dim, tortuous Bazar of the 
Potters, plum-colored Nubians brought as 
slaves from Africa, and, farther on, a cemetery 
criss-crossed with Barbary fig and the tiny 
stone cups filled with grain and water for the 
birds of passage, in obedience to the blessed 
Moslem tradition. 

In the very centre of the square of the One- 
Eyed Jew a great fountain played with sleepy, 
silvered cadences. And here, on a stone slab 
a little to one side of the fountain, Ahmed the 
Thief lay flat on his stomach, his chin cupped 
in his hands, the sun rays warming his bare, 
bronzed back, his black eyes darting in all direc¬ 
tions like dragon-flies to give warning of rich 
and careless citizens who might pass within 
reach of his agile hands and whose purses might 
be had for a little soft twist and tug. 

The Square and the streets and bazars were 
teeming with humanity, not to mention human¬ 
ity’s wives and children and mothers-in-law and 
visiting country cousins. For today was a 
holiday: the day before the Lelet el-Kadr , the 
“Night of Honor,” the anniversary of the oc- 


14 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


casion when the Koran was revealed to the 
Prophet Mohammed in the year 609. 

So throngs milled and moiled everywhere: 
people of half the Orient’s crazy-quilt of races, 
Arabs and Seljuks and Osmanlis, Tartars and 
Syrians, Turkomans and Uzbeks, Bokharans, 
Moors and Egyptians, with here and there men 
from the Farther East, Chinese, Hindus and 
Malays, traveling merchants these, come to 
Bagdad to swap the products of their home 
lands for what the Arabs markets had to offer. 
They were all making merry after the Orient’s 
immemorial fashion, resplendently, extrava¬ 
gantly, and noisily: the men swaggering and 
strutting, fingering their jewled daggers and 
cocking their immense turbans at a rakish, 
devil-may-care angle; the women adjusting 
their thin-meshed face veils which did not need 
adjusting at all; the little boys seeing if they 
could shout richer and louder abuse than the 
other little boys; the little girls rivaling each 
other in the gay pansy-shades of their dresses 
and the consumption of greasy candy. 

There were ambulant coffee houses filled with 
men and women in their silken, colorful holi- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 15 


day best, listening to singers and professional 
story tellers, smoking and chatting, looking 
at jugglers, knife twirlers, sword swallowers, 
and dancing-boys. There were cook shops and 
lemonade stands, toy booths and merry-go- 
rounds. There were bear leaders, ape leaders, 
fakirs, fortune tellers, buffoons and Punch and 
Judy shows. There were itinerant dervish 
preachers chanting the glories of Allah the One, 
of the Prophet Mohammed and the Forty- 
Seven True Saints. There were bell-shaped 
tents where golden-skinned, blue-tattooed Bed- 
awin maidens trilled and quavered their desert 
songs, to the accompaniment of tamborines and 
shrill scrannel pipes. There was everything 
which makes life worth the living, including a 
great deal of love making—the love making of 
the Orient which is frank, direct, and a trifle 
indelicate to Western ears and prejudices. 

There were of course the many cries of the 
street. 

“Sweet water! Sweet water, and gladden 
thy soul! Lemonade! Lemonade here!” cried 
the sellers of that luxury, clanking their brass 
cups together. 


16 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“O chick pease! O pips!” shouted the vend¬ 
ors of parched grains. “Good for the liver— 
the stomach! To sharpen the teeth!” 

“In thy protection, O my Head, O my 
Eyes!” moaned a peasant, drunk with has¬ 
heesh, whom a turbanded policeman, wielding 
his rhinoceros-hide whip with all his strength, 
was flogging toward the station house, the peas¬ 
ant’s wife following with loud plaints of: “Yah 
Gharati—yah Dahwati! O thou my Calamity 
—O thou my Shame!” 

“Bless the Prophet and give way to our 
great Pasha!” exclaimed the panting, black 
slave who was running by the side of a grandee’s 
carriage as it crossed the Square. 

“O Daughter of the Devil! O Commodity on 
which Money is lost! O thou especially not 
wanted!” shrieked a woman as she yanked her 
tiny, pert-eyed girl-child from beneath the crim¬ 
son paper partition of a sugar candy booth. 
The next moment she fondled and kissed her. 
“O Peace of my Soul!” she cooed. “O Chief 
Pride of thy Father’s House—though only a 
girl!” 

“The grave is the darkness! Good deeds are 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 17 


the lamps!” wailed the blind beggar woman, 
rattling two dry sticks. 

Friend would meet friend and greet each 
other with all the extravagance of the Orient, 
throwing themselves upon each other’s breasts, 
placing right arm over left shoulder, squeezing 
like wrestlers, with intermittent hugs and cares¬ 
ses, then laying cheek delicately against cheek 
and flat palm against palm, at the same time 
making the loud, smacking noise of many kisses 
in the air. 

Mild-mannered, sleepy-eyed and suave, they 
would burst into torrents of rage at the next 
moment because of some fancied insult. Their 
nostrils would quiver and they would become 
furious as Bengal tigers. Then would come 
streams of obscene abuse, carefully chosen 
phrases of that picaresque vituperation in which 
the East excels. 

“Owl! Donkey! Christian! Jew! Leper! 
Pig bereft of gratitude, understanding, and 
the average decencies!” This from an elderly 
Arab whose long white beard gave him an 
aspect of patriarchal dignity in ludicrous con¬ 
trast with the foul invective which he was using. 


18 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Unclean and swinish foreigner! May thy 
countenance be cold! May dogs defile thy 
mother’s grave!” 

Came the reply courteous: 

“Basest of illegitimate hyenas! Father of 
seventeen dogs! Bath servant! Seller of pig’s 
tripe!” 

And then the final retort, drawling, slow¬ 
voiced, but bristling with all the venom of the 
East: 

“Ho! Thy maternal aunt had no nose, O 
thou brother of a naughty sister!” 

Then a physical assault, an exchange of 
blows, fists going like flails, until the grinning, 
spitting, crimson-turbaned policeman separated 
the combatants and cuffed them both with 
cheerful, democratic impartiality. 

“Hai! Hai! Hair laughed the onlookers. 

“Hai! Hail Hayahl Hair laughed the 
Thief of Bagdad; and the very next moment, 
as a paunchy, grey-bearded money lender stop¬ 
ped at the fountain and bent to sip a drink of 
water with cupped hands, Ahmed’s agile fingers 
decended, twisted, tugged imperceptibly and 
came up with a well-filled purse. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 19 


Another imperceptible jerk of these agile, 
brown fingers; and while his body lay flat and 
motionless, while his eyes were as innocent as 
those of a child, the purse plopped into his 
baggy trousers of purple, silver-threaded silk 
that were tight about the ankles and that, only 
the night before, he had acquired—without pay¬ 
ing for them—in the Bazar of the Persian 
Weavers. 

Minute after minute he lay there, laughing, 
watching, exchanging jests with people here 
and there in the crowd; and many of those who 
stopped by the fountain to drink or to gossip, 
helped to swell the loot in Ahmed’s loose 
breeches. 

There was amongst that loot, to describe just 
a few items, a knotted handkerchief, clinking 
with coined silver and filched from the woolen 
folds of a hulking, bullying, beetle-browed 
Tartar camel master’s burnoose; a tinkling 
ruby-and-moonstone girdle gem from the waist 
shawl of one of the Caliph’s favorite Circas¬ 
sian slave girls who moved through the Square 
and past the fountain escorted by a dozen armed 
eunuchs; a ring of soft, hammered gold set with 


20 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


an enormous star-sapphire from the henna- 
stained thumb of a visiting Stambul dandy 
whom Ahmed, lest the stranger spot his bro¬ 
caded robe, had helped to a drink of water, and 
had been rewarded by the other’s courtly: “May 
the Prophet Mohammed repay thee for thy 
kindness!”—rewarded too, and rather more sub¬ 
stantially, by the afore-mentioned ring. 

Ahmed was about to call it a day when there 
came out of the Bazar of the Red Sea Traders 
a rich merchant, a certain Tagi Kahn, well 
known through all Bagdad because of his 
wealth and his extravagance—an extravagance, 
be it added, which he centred on his own person 
and the enjoyment of his five senses, and which 
he made up for by extreme penury where the 
poor and the needy were concerned, and by 
lending money at exorbitant rates, taking as 
security the cow and the unborn calf. 

He walked with a mincing step, his wicked, 
shriveled old face topped ludicrously by a co¬ 
quettish turban of pale cerise, his scanty beard 
dyed blue with indigo, his pointed finger nails 
gilt in a foppish manner, his lean body clad in 
green silk, and holding in his bony right hand 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 21 


a large cluster of lilies at which he sniffed. 

All this Ahmed saw and disliked. Saw, fur¬ 
thermore, protruding a little from Tagi Kahn’s 
waist shawl, the sagging plumpness of an em¬ 
broidered purse. A fat purse! A rich, swollen, 
bloated purse! A purse to stir the imagina¬ 
tion of both the righteous and the unrighteous! 

“Mine—by the red pig’s bristles!” thought 
Ahmed, as the other passed the fountain. 
“Mine—or may I never laugh again!” 

Already his right hand had descended. Al¬ 
ready his agile fingers were curling like ques¬ 
tion marks. Already the purse was sliding 
gently from Tagi Kahn’s waist shawl when— 
for let us remember that Ahmed was stretched 
flat on his stomach, his bare back warmed by 
the sun—an inquisitive mosquito lit on his 
shoulder and stung him painfully. 

He wiggled; twisted. 

His tapering fingers slipped and jerked. 

And Tagi Kahn, feeling the jerk, looked up, 
and saw his purse in Ahmed’s hand. 

“Thief! Thief! Thief!” he yelled, reaching 
up, clutching at the purse, grabbing its other 
end. “Give it back to me!” 


22 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“No! No!” protested Ahmed, pulling the 
purse away and transfering it quickly to his 
left hand. “It is mine own purse! I am not a 
thief! I am an honest man! It is you, yourself, 
who are the thief!” 

And, appealing to the people who came 
crowding up on a run, he continued heatedly, 
with every expression of injured innocence: 

“Behold me this Tagi Kahn! This oppressor 
of widows and orphans! This worshiper be¬ 
fore the unclean gods of compound interest! 
He accuses me— me —of being a thief!” 

“You are a thief!” bellowed the merchant. 
“You stole my purse!” 

“The purse is mine!” 

“No—mine—O Father of a bad Smell!” 

“Goat!” came Ahmed’s reply. “Goat of an 
odor most goatish! Abuser of the Salt!”—and 
he jumped down from the ledge and faced the 
other. 

Standing there in the bright, yellow sunlight, 
poised on the balls of his bare feet, ready for 
either flight or combat as the odds might advise, 
he was a fine figure of a man: short rather than 
tall, but perfectly proportioned from narrow 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 23 


foot to curly head, with a splendid breadth of 
chest and shoulders, and long muscles that were 
like running water. There was here none of 
your clumsy, flabby, overfed Nordic flesh, like 
a greasy, pink-and-white suet pudding, but a 
smooth, hairless torso, with the crunching 
strength of a man and the grace of a woman. 
The face was clean-shaven except for an impu¬ 
dent little mustache that quivered with well- 
simulated wrath as he heaped insults upon the 
stammering, raging Tagi Khan. 

The crowd laughed and applauded—for Tagi 
Khan had not many friends in Bagdad—until 
finally a gigantic, black-bearded Captain of the 
Watch shouldered his way through the throng. 

“Be quiet, both you fighting-cocks!” he 
thundered threateningly. “This is Bagdad, the 
Caliph’s town, where they hang men in chains 
from the Gate of Lions for shouting too loudly 
in the marketplace. And now—softly, softly— 
what is the trouble?” 

“He took my purse, O Protector of the 
Righteous 1” wailed Tagi Khan. 

“The purse was never his,” asserted Ahmed, 
boldly displaying the disputed article and hold- 


24 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ing it high. “It is a most precious heirloom 
bequeathed to me by my late father—may his 
soul dwell in Paradise!” 

“A lie!” exclaimed the other. 

“The truth!” insisted Ahmed. 

“A lie! A lie! A lie!” the merchant’s voice 
rose a hectic octave. 

“Softly, softly!” came the Captain’s warn¬ 
ing; and he went on: “There is but one way 
to decide this matter. Whoever owns this purse 
knows its contents.” 

“A wise man!” commented the crowd. 

“As wise as Solomon, the King of the Jews!” 

Unblushingly, the Captain of the Watch'ac¬ 
cepted the flattery. He stuck out his great 
beard like a batteringram; raised hairy, high- 
veined hands. 

“Wise indeed am I!” he admitted calmly. 
“And now—my Tagi Khan—since you claim 
this purse, suppose you tell me what its con¬ 
tents are . . . . ?” 

“Gladly! Readily! Easily!” came the mer¬ 
chant’s triumphant reply. “My purse holds 
three golden tomans from Persia, one chipped 
at the edge; a bright, carved silver medjidieh 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 25 


from Stambul; eighteen various gold pieces 
from Bokhara, Khiva, and Samarkand; a shoe¬ 
shaped candareen from far Pekin; and a hand¬ 
ful of small coins from the lands of the Franks 
—cursed be all unbelievers! Give me the purse! 
It is mine!” 

“One moment,” said the Captain. He turned 
to Ahmed. “And what do you claim the purse 
to contain?” 

“Why—” laughed the Thief of Bagdad— 
“it contains nothing at all, O Great Lord! 
And—” opening the purse and turning it 
inside out—“here is the proof!” But he kept 
his right leg very quiet to keep the stolen money, 
which he had plopped into his baggy breeches, 
from rattling against the rest of his loot and 
thus giving him away. 

Laughter, then, from the crowd. Riotous, 
exaggerated, falsetto Oriental laughter—pres¬ 
ently topped by the Captain’s words: 

“You spoke the truth, young man!” 

He winked at Ahmed shamelessly and bra¬ 
zenly. For a year or two earlier he had bor¬ 
rowed a sum of money from Tagi Khan; and, 
the first of every month, had paid high interest 


26 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and substantial instalments without, thanks to 
the other’s miraculous calculations, being ever 
able to diminish the principal. 

He addresed the merchant with crushing, 
chilly words: 

“Consider, O Wart, that the Prophet Mo¬ 
hammed—on Him the blessings and the peace! 
—recommended honesty as a charming and 
worthwhile virtue! No—no . . . ” as Tagi 
Khan was about to break into a flood of hitter 
protestations—“consider, furthermore, that the 
tongue is the enemy of the neck!” 

With which cryptic threat he swaggered off, 
bumping his sabre tip martially against the 
stone pavement, while the Thief of Bagdad 
thumbed his nose insultingly at the infuriated 
merchant and turned West across the Square, 
toward the Bazar of the Potters. 

Ahmed was pleased with himself, the sun¬ 
shine, and the world at large. 

Money he had! Money that would be eagerly 
welcomed by his pal, an old man who had first 
initiated him into the Honorable Guild of Bag¬ 
dad Thieves and had taught him the tricks and 
principles of their ancient profession. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 27 


Today Ahmed was a greater thief than his 
former teacher. But he still loved the other, 
a certain Hassan el-Toork, nicknamed Bird- 
of-Evil because of his scrawny neck, his claw¬ 
like hands, his parrot’s beak and beady, purple- 
black eyes; and he shared everything with him. 

Yes. Hassan el-Toork would be glad of the 
money—and the other rich loot. 

“But here it was getting on toward the noon 
hour, and Ahmed had not yet broken his fast. 
His stomach grumbled and rumbled, protest- 
ingly, challengingly. Should he spend his 
money on f ood ? No! Not unless he absolutely 
had to! 

“I shall follow my nose!” he said to him¬ 
self. “Aye! I shall follow this clever nose 
of mine than which, except for my hands, I 
have no better friend in the world. Lead on, 
nose!” he laughed. “Sniff! Smell! Trail! Show 
me the way! And I, thy master, shall be grate¬ 
ful to thee and shall reward thee with the aroma 
of whatever rich food may tickle my palate and 
bloat this shriveled belly of mine!” 

So the nose sniffed and led the way; and 
Ahmed followed, across the Square of the One- 


28 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Eyed Jew, through the packed wilderness of 
small Arab houses that ran together like child¬ 
ren at play, with a glimpse at the sky above the 
roof tops revealing scarcely three yards of 
breadth, the copings meeting at times, and the 
bulbous, fantastic balconies seeming to interlace 
like the outrigging of sailing craft in a Malay 
harbor; until finally, at a place where the alleys 
broadened into another Square, the nostrils 
quivered and the nose dilated, causing the owner 
of the nose to stop and stand still, like a pointer 
at hay. 

A delicious, seductive odor was wafted from 
somewhere: rice cooked with honey and rose 
buds and green pistache nuts and drowned in 
a generous flood of clarified butter; meat balls 
spiced with saffron and poppy seeds; egg plants 
cleverly stuffed with raisins and with secret 
condiments from the Island of the Seven Pur¬ 
ple Cranes. 

Ahmed looked in the direction where the 
nose sniffed. 

And there, balanced on the railing of a 
bird’s-nest balcony high up on the wall of a 
Pasha’s proud palace, he saw three great porce- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 29 


lain bowls, heaped with steaming food, that a 
fat Nubian cook had put there to cool a little. 

He looked at the wall. It was steep, high, 
straight up and down, with never a foothold of 
any sort. A cat in climbing, he was. But to 
reach this balcony he needed wings, and—he 
laughed—“I am not a bird, and may Allah 
grant it be many years before I become an an¬ 
gel!” 

And then, brushing through the deserted 
Square, he heard two noises blending into a 
symphony: a man’s staccato snore and a iponk- 
ey’s melancholy, pessimistic bray. He looked 
about, and, a little to the left, he saw an enor¬ 
mous Tartar peddler—well over three hundred 
pounds he must have weighed—asleep in the 
sun, sitting cross-legged on huge haunches, his 
extravagant stomach resting and overlapping 
on his stout knees, his great, turbaned head bob¬ 
bing up and down, snoring loudly through half¬ 
open lips, while, a few feet away, a tiny white 
donkey, the fruit-panniers empty but for three 
spoiled melons and roped to the wooden pack- 
saddle, was braying at the sky, doubtless com¬ 
plaining of its boredom. 


30 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“A pulley!” thought Ahmed. “Sent by Al¬ 
lah Himself to help me up to yonder balcony!” 

A few moments later he had unwound the 
turban cloth from about the Tartar’s head, 
weighted it with a melon, flung one end over 
the balcony railing, and, when it came back to 
his hands, tucked it deftly under the sleeping 
man’s knees, then tied it to the donkey’s saddle. 

“Up, little donkey!” he called softly. “Up, 
little brother, and back to thy stable—the rich, 
green food! Up!” 

And the donkey, nothing loath, ambled stur¬ 
dily on its way; the Tartar, with the turban 
cloth tugging at his knees, awakened, saw the 
donkey trotting away, and waddled after it with 
loud shouts of: “Hey, there! Wait a moment, 
Long-Ears!” And thus, clinging to the tur¬ 
ban cloth as if it were a rope, ambling donkey 
and waddling peddler serving as a pulley, Ah¬ 
med was drawn up to the balcony in triumph 
and comfort, and lost no time in helping him¬ 
self to food, stuffing his mouth with large, 
greedy, well-spiced handfuls. 

He had not been there very long when a com¬ 
motion caused him to look down. Around the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 31 


corner, surrounded by a crowd of men and wo¬ 
men and children, he saw an Indian sorcerer 
swinging with a majestic stride. The man was 
immensely tall, emaciated, bearded, and naked 
but for a scarlet loin-cloth. By his side tripped 
a young boy, while two attendants followed, 
one carrying a grass-woven basket and a bundle 
of swords, the other a coiled rope. 

Arrived just below the balcony, the Hindu 
stopped and addressed the crowd. 

“Moslems,” he said, “permit me to introduce 
myself. I am,” he announced without the 
slightest diffidence, “Vikramavata, the Swami, 
the Yogi, the greatest miracle-worker out of 
Hindustan! There is none in the Seven Known 
Worlds who approaches me in the mastery of 
either white or black magic! I am a vast sea 
of most excellent qualities! I am—so I have 
been assured by truth-telling and disinterested 
persons in China and Tartary and the lands of 
the do£-faced Mongols—a jewel of pure gold, 
a handful of powdered rubies, an exquisite 
tonic for the human brain, the father and 
mother of hidden wisdom!” He motioned to 
his attendants who put basket, swords, and 


32 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


rope on the ground, and went on: “If you like 
my sorcery, stay not the generosity of your 
hands! For”— in flat and shameless con¬ 
tradiction to his previous statement—“I am 
but a poor and humble man, with seven wives 
and seven times seventeen children, all clamor¬ 
ing for food!” 

He bent; opened the basket. 

“Ho!” he shouted at the young boy who 
thereupon jumped into the basket, where he 
curled up like a kitten. The Hindu closed it, 
picked up the swords and thrust them through 
every part of the basket with all his strength, 
while the crowd looked on, utterly fascinated. 

Up on the balcony Ahmed, too, watched. 
He was pleased more than ever with himself 
and the world at large. Why, he had money, 
a few choice jewels, an abundance of food— 
here he helped himself to another liberal fist¬ 
ful—and now a show: all free of charge, all 
for the asking and taking! 

“Hayall!” he said to himself, sitting on the 
balcony rail and chewing luxuriously, “life is 
pleasant—and he who works and strives is a 
fool!” 



CHAPTER II 








CHAPTER II 


Down in the Square the Hindu continued 
his sorceries. 

He put a dry mango seed on the ground 
for all the world to see. Thrice he passed his 
hand over it, murmuring mysterious Indian 
words: 

“Bhut, pret, pisack, dan a, 

Clfiee mantar , sab nikal jana, 

Mane , mane , SJiivha khahna. . . 

and the mango seed burst—it grew—it shot 
in the air—in bloom—in fruit. Again he 
waves his hand and—behold!—the mango was 
gone. 

He asked the boy to approach. He whis¬ 
pered a secret word and, suddenly, a glistening 
Khyberee sword flashed in his right hand. He 
lifted it high above his head. He struck with 
all his might. And the boy’s head rolled on 
35 


36 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


the ground; blood squirted; while the onlook¬ 
ers were aghast, sucking in their breath like 
little lisping babes in the dark. Then he waves 
his hands again, and there was the boy, his 
head on his neck where it belonged, a smile on 
his lips. 

So trick followed trick while the crowd ap¬ 
plauded and shuddered and laughed and chat¬ 
tered and wondered, until finally the Hindu 
announced the greatest of all his tricks: the 
trick of the magic rope. 

“A rope,” he explained, uncoiling it and 
whizzing it through the air with a sharp noise, 
“woven from the hair of a purple-faced witch 
of the left-handed sect! Never in all the world 
was there such a rope! Look, O Moslems!” 

Swish!—he threw the rope into the air, 
straight up, and it remained there standing, 
without support, erect, lithe, like a slim tree, 
its upper end parallel with the balcony rail and 
directly in front of Ahmed’s eyes, who could 
hardly control his itching palms. 

Why—he thought—to possess this magic 
rope! What a help for the Thief of Bagdad! 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 37 


The Hindu clapped his hands. 

“Hayah! Ho! Jao!” he yelled; and sud¬ 
denly the boy disappeared, vanished into the 
nowhere, while the spectators gaped with 
open mouths. 

“Hayah! Ho! Jao!” the sorcerer repeated; 
and a quivering shout of awed wonder rose 
from the crowd as they saw there, high up on 
the rope, come out of the nowhere into which he 
had disappeared, the boy clinging like a monk¬ 
ey. The next moment he had slid down and 
was going the round of the audience, asking 
for bakshish that was contributed generously; 
and even Ahmed was on the point of obeying 
the impulse and had already reached into his 
baggy trousers for a coin, when a throaty, gut¬ 
tural cry of rage caused him to turn quickly. 
There, like a plum-colored, obese goddess of 
wrath, stood the Nubian cook who had come 
from the interior of the palace. She saw the 
bowls of food; saw that impious hands had 
toyed with their contents; saw the munching, 
chewing Ahmed; and, putting two and two to¬ 
gether, went for him, brandishing her heavy 
iron stirring ladle like a Sarazene battle ax. 


38 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Ahmed considered and acted at the same 
fraction of a second. He launched himself 
away from the balcony railing; leaped straight 
at the magic rope; clutched it; and so there 
he was, swinging in mid-air, the cook calling 
down imprecations from above, the Hindu 
echoing them from below. And be it men¬ 
tioned—in Ahmed’s favor or to his shame, ex¬ 
actly as you prefer—that he replied to both, 
impartially, vituperatively, enthusiastically, 
insult for insult and curse for curse. 

‘‘Come back here, O Son of a noseless 
Mother, and pay for what you stole!” yelled 
the cook. 

“Come down here, O Camel-Spawn, and be 
grievously beaten!” demanded the sorcerer. 

“I shall do neither!” laughed the Thief of 
Bagdad. “It is airy up here and pleasant and 
most exclusive! Here I am, and here I shall 
remain!” 

But he did not. 

For at last the Hindu lost his patience. He 
made another magic pass, whispered another 
secret word, and the rope gave, bent, flicked 
from side to side, shot down to the ground. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 39 


and sent Ahmed sprawling. Almost immedi¬ 
ately he was up again, his agile fingers clutch¬ 
ing at the rope. But the Hindu’s hand was as 
quick as Ahmed’s, and so they stood there, 
tugging at the rope, with the crowd looking 
on and laughing, when suddenly from the dis¬ 
tance, where a Mosque peaked its minaret of 
rosy stone overlaid half way up with a faience 
tiling of dusky, peacock-green sheen, a muez¬ 
zin’s voice drifted out, chanting the call to 
mid-day prayer, stilling the tumult: 

“Es salat wah es-salaam aleyk, yah auwel 
khulk Illah wah khatimat russul Illah — peace 
be with Thee and the glory, O first-born of the 
creatures of God, and seal of the apostles of 
God! Hie ye to devotion! Hie ye to salva¬ 
tion! Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is 
better than food! Bless ye God and the Pro¬ 
phet! Come, all ye faithful!” 

“Wah khatimat russul Illah -" mumbled 

the crowd, turning in the direction of Mecca. 

They prostrated themselves, touching the 
ground with palms and foreheads. The Hindu 
joined them, chanting fervently. So did 
Ahmed, though not so fervently. Indeed 



40 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


while, mechanically, automatically, he bowed 
toward the East and while his lips formed the 
words of the prayer, his roaming, lawless eyes 
noticed the magic rope, between him and the 
Hindu. The latter, occupied with his devo¬ 
tions, was paying no attention to it. A mo¬ 
ment later, watching his chance, Ahmed had 
picked it up and was away, fleet-footedly, 
across the bent backs of the worshipers. He 
ran at a good clip through the wilderness of 
little Arab houses. He increased his speed 
when, not long afterwards, he heard in the dis¬ 
tance the view-halloo of the man-chase as the 
Hindu, rising from his devotions, noticed that 
his precious rope had been stolen. 

“Thief! Thief! Catch thief!” the shout 
rose, bloated, stabbed, spread. 

He ran as fast as he could. But his pur¬ 
suers gained on him steadily, and he felt 
afraid. Only the day before he had watched 
a thief being beaten in public with cruel rhino¬ 
ceros-hide whips that had torn the man’s back 
to crimson shreds. He shuddered at the recol¬ 
lection. He ran till his lungs were at the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 41 


bursting point, his knees ready to give way 
under him. 

He had turned the corner of the Street of 
the Mutton-Butchers when his pursuers came 
in sight. They saw him. 

“Thief! Thief!” the shouts echoed and re¬ 
verberated, sharp, grim, ominous, freezing the 
marrow in his bones. 

Where could he turn? Where hide himself? 
And then he saw, directly in front of him, an 
immense building; saw above him, thirty feet 
up, the invitation of an open window. How 
reach it? Hopeless! But, the next moment, 
he remembered his magic rope. He spoke the 
secret word. And the rope uncoiled, whizzed, 
stood straight like a lance at rest, and up he 
went hand over hand. 

He reached the window, climbed in, drew 
the rope after him. 

The house was deserted. He sped through 
empty rooms and corridors; came out on the 
roof and crossed it; leaped to a second roof and 
crossed that; a third; a fourth; until at last, 
slipping through a trap door, he found him¬ 
self—for the first time in his unhallowed ex- 


42 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


istence—in a Mosque of Allah, up on the ceil¬ 
ing rafters. 

Inside, below him, a tall, gentle-eyed, green- 
turbaned Moslem priest was addressing a 
small gathering of devotees. 

“There is prayer to Allah in everything,” 
he said, “in the buzzing of the insects, the scent 
of flowers, the lowing of cattle, the sighing of 
the breeze. But there is no prayer to be com¬ 
pared to the prayer of a man’s honest, plucky 
work. Such prayer means happiness. Honest, 
courageous, fearless work means the greatest 
happiness on earth!” 

A sentiment the opposite of Ahmed’s philos¬ 
ophy of life. 

“You lie, O priest!” he shouted from the 
rafters; and he slid down and faced the Holy 
Man with impudent eyes and arrogant ges¬ 
tures. 

There was an angry growling, as of wild 
animals, among the devotees. Fists were raised 
to smash that blasphemous mouth. But the 
priest raised calm hands. He smiled upon 
Ahmed as he might upon a babbling child. 

“You are—ah—quite sure, my friend?” he 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 43 


asked with gentle irony. “You know, belike, 
a better prayer, a greater happiness than 
honest, courageous work?” 

“I do!” replied Ahmed. For a fleeting mo¬ 
ment he felt embarrassed beneath the other’s 
steady gaze. The shadow of an uneasy pre¬ 
monition crept over his soul. Something akin 
to awe, to fear, touched his spine with clay- 
cold hands, and he was ashamed of this feeling 
of fear; spoke the more arrogantly and loudly 
to hide this fear from himself: “I have a dif¬ 
ferent creed! What I want, I take! My re¬ 
ward is here, on earth! Paradise is a fool’s 
dream, and Allah is nothing but a myth!” 

Again the angry worshippers surged toward 
him. Again the Holy Man held them back 
with a gesture of his lean hands. He called 
after Ahmed, who was about to leave the 
Mosque. 

“I shall be here, little brother,” he said, “and 
waiting for you—in case you need my help— 
the help of my faith in God and the Prophet!” 

“I —need youV* mocked Ahmed. “Never, 
priest! Hay ah! Can a frog catch cold?” 


44 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


And, with a ringing laugh, he was out of 
the Mosque. 

Ten minutes later, he reached the dwelling 
place which he shared with Hassan el-Toork, 
nicknamed Bird-of-Evil, his pal and partner. 
A snug, cosy, secret little dwelling it was, in 
the bottom of an abandoned well, and there 
he spread his loot before the other’s delighted 
eyes. 

“I love you, my little butter-ball, my little 
sprig of sweet-scented sassafras!” mumbled 
Bird-of-Evil, caressing Ahmed’s cheek with his 
clawlike old hands. “Never was there as clever 
a thief as you! You could steal food from be¬ 
tween my lips, and my belly would be none 
the wiser! Gold—Jewels—purses . . .’’he 
toyed with the loot—“and this magic rope! 
Why, in the future there will be no wall too 
high for us, no roof too steep, and . . .’’he 
slurred, interrupted himself as—for the aban¬ 
doned well was only a stone’s throw from Bag¬ 
dad’s outer gate—a loud voice called to the 
warden to open it: 

“Open wide the gates of Bagdad! We are 
porters bringing precious things for the adorn- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 45 


ment of the Palace! For tomorrow suitors 
come to woo our royal Princess!” 

The Caliph in those days was Shirzad 
Kemal-ud-Dowlah, twelfth and greatest of the 
glorious Ghaznavide dynasty. Lord he was 
from Bagdad to Stambul, and from Mecca to 
Jerusalem. His pride was immense, and, be¬ 
side his Arabic title of Caliph, he gloried in 
such splendid Turkish titles as: Imam-ul- 
Muslemin—Pontiff of all Moslems; Alem 
Penah—Refuge of the World; Hunkiar— 
Man-Slayer; Ali-Osman Padishahi—King of 
the Descendants of Osman; Shahin Shahi 
Alem—King of the Sovereigns of the Uni¬ 
verse; Hudavendighar—Attached to God; 
Shahin Shahi Movazem ve-Hillulah—High 
King of Kings and shadow of God upon 
Earth. 

Zobeid was his daughter, his only child, and 
heir to his great kingdom. 

As to Zobeid’s beauty and charm and sur¬ 
passing witchery, there have come down to us, 
through the grey, swinging centuries, a baker’s 
dozen of reports. To believe them all one 


46 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


would have to conclude that, compared to her, 
Helen of Troy for the sake of whose face a 
thousand ships were launched, was only an 
ugly duckling. We choose therefore, with full 
deliberation, the simplest and least florid of 
these contemporary accounts, as contained in 
the letter of a certain Abu’l Hamed el-Anda- 
lusi, an Arab poet who, visiting for reasons 
of his own a young Circassian slave girl in the 
Caliph’s harem, happened to glance through 
a slit in the brocaded curtain which separated 
the slave’s room from the apartment of the 
Princess, and saw her there. He wrote his 
impressions to a brother-poet in Damascus; 
wrote as follows: 

“Her face is as wondrous as the moon on 
the fourteenth day; her black locks are female 
cobras; her waist is the waist of the she-lion; 
her eyes are violets drenched in dew; her mouth 
is like a crimson sword wound; her skin is like 
the sweetly scented champaka flower; her nar¬ 
row feet are twin lilies.” 

The letter continues with slight Oriental ex¬ 
aggeration that Zobeid was the Light of the 
writer’s Eyes, the Soul of his Soul, the Breath 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 47 


of his Nostrils, and—than which there is no 
praise more ardent in the Arabic language— 
the Blood of his Liver; it mentions such rather 
personal items that the Circassian slave girl 
when she saw the desire eddy up in the poet’s 
eyes, was for scratching them out on the spot; 
and comes down to earth again by saying: 

“Never in all the seven worlds of Allah’s 
creation lived there a woman to touch the 
shadow of Zobeid’s feet. Brother mine!—as 
a garment she is white and gold; as a season, 
the spring; as a flower, the Persian jasmine; 
as a speaker, the nightingale, as a perfume, 
musk blended with amber and sandalwood; as 
a being, love incarnate . . . .” 

So the letter, today yellow and brittle and 
pathetic with age, goes on for several pages. 
Small wonder, therefore, that throughout the 
Orient Zobeid’s fame spread like powder 
under spark, and that there were many suitors 
for her small, pretty hand—not to mention 
the great kingdom which she would inherit on 
her father’s death—and chiefly Asia’s three 
mightiest monarchs. 

The first of these was Cham Sheng, Prince 


48 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


of the Mongols, King of Ho Sho, Governor 
of Wah Hoo and the sacred Island of Wak, 
Khan of the golden Horde, Khan of the Silver 
Horde, who traced his descent in a straight 
line back to Gengiz Khan, the great conqueror 
out of the Central Asian plains, and who had 
brought under his spurred heel all the North 
and East, from Lake Baikal to Pekin, from 
the frozen Arctic tundras to the moist, ma¬ 
larial warmth of Tonkin’s rice paddies. 

The second was Khalaf Mansur Nasir-ud-din 
Nadir Khan Kuli Khan Durani, Prince and 
King of Persia, Shah-in-Shah of Khorassan 
and Azerbaian, Khan of the Kizilbashis and 
Outer Tartars, Chief of the Shia Moslems, 
Ever-Victorious Lion of Allah, Conqueror of 
Russia and of Germany as far as the Oder, 
Warrior for the Faith of Islam, Attabeg over 
all the Cossacks, and descendant of the Prophet 
Mohammed. 

The third was Bhartari-hari Vijramukut, 
Prince of Hindustan and the South from the 
Himalayas to Cape Comorin, descendant of 
Ganesha, the elephant-headed God of Wis¬ 
dom, on his father’s side and on his mother’s— 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 49 


slightly more modestly—descendant of an il¬ 
legitimate union between the Flame and. the 
Moon. 

All three were due to arrive in Bagdad on 
the morrow; so the slaves and servants and 
majordomos and eunuchs of the Caliph’s palace 
were hustling and bustling and yelling and 
rushing about and perspiring and swearing and 
appealing to Allah in a fever of preparations 
for the princely visitors; and loud was the 
clamoring at Bagdad’s outer gate: 

“Open up! Open up, O Warden of the 
Walls! We are porters bringing rare food 
and rarer wines for tomorrow’s feasting!” 

Ahmed heard the tumult and turned to 
Bird-of-Evil. 

“Come, O ancient and malodorous parrot of 
my heart!” he said, climbing up the rope lad¬ 
der that led to the mouth of the abandoned 
well. 

“Where to?” 

“To the palace!” 

“The palace?” 

“Yes,” replied the Thief of Bagdad. “Often 


50 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and greatly have I desired to see it—from the 
inside. I wager there is loot in there worthy 
of my agile fingers and cunning brain.” 

“Doubtless! But they will not let you in!” 

“They may!” 

“How?” 

“I have an idea, Bird-of-Evil!” And, when 
the other commenced asking and arguing: “I 
have no time to explain now. Come. And 
don’t forget your black camel’s-hair cloak.” 

“It is not cold today.” 

“I know. But we shall need the cloak.” 

“Why?” 

“Wait and see, O son of an impatient father.” 

They were out of the well, ran down the 
street, and just beyond the corner caught up 
with the tail-end of the procession of porters 
that moved through the broad, tree-lined ave¬ 
nue toward the Caliph’s palace. There were 
hundreds and hundreds of them. Most of them 
were gigantic, plum-colored, frizzy, tattooed 
Central Africian slaves, and they stepped along 
with the tireless lope, the swaying hips and 
long body-pull of their jungly breed, balancing 
bundles and bales and baskets and jars on their 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 51 


kinky polls, with Arab overseers trotting on 
either side and driving on the lagging with 
knotted, rawhide whips. At the end of the 
avenue, surrounded by a huge garden ablaze 
with flowers, the palace closed the vista like an 
enormous seal of marble and granite. Rising 
high in even tiers, curving inward like a bay of 
darkness dammed by the stony sweep of the 
crenellated, wing-like battlements, soaring 
North and South into two cube-shaped granite 
towers, topped by a forest of turrets and spires 
and domes, it descended beyond the horizon in 
a bold avalanche of square-clouted, fantastical¬ 
ly painted masonry. The frontal gateway was 
covered by a door—rather a diphanous, but 
strong, almost unbreakable net—of closely 
woven iron-and-silver chains, that rattled down 
into a groove as the captain of the gate wardens 
saw the porters approaching and motioned to 
his armed, turbaned assistants. 

The porters passed in singly and by twos and 
threes. The last was a tall negro who carried 
an earthen jar filled with golden, flower-scented 
Shiraz wine. But—wait!—here came still 
another porter. Not a negro he, but a lithe 


52 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


young Arab, naked to the waist, his legs covered 
by silken, baggy breeches, and balancing on his 
head a squat bundle that was hidden by a black 
camel’s-hair cloak. 

Just as the man was about to cross the thres¬ 
hold, the captain’s narrow eyes contracted into 
slits. Quickly he motioned to his assistants 
who raised the chain door. 

“Let me in!” demanded the young porter. 
“Let me in!” 

“No, no!” laughed the red-bearded, pot¬ 
bellied captain. “No, no, my clever bazar 
hound!” 

“Let me in!” repeated the other. “Let me 
in, O gross mountain of pig’s flesh. I am bring¬ 
ing a hundred-weight of precious Bokhara 
grapes for the morrow’s feasting!” 

Again the captain laughed. 

“Soul of my soul,” he said, “these grapes of 
yours are curious grapes! Behold! They move 
—as if they were alive! Hay all! Hay ah !”— 
raising his lance and pricking the bundle which 
thereupon squirmed, squeaked, squealed loudly 
—“a bunch of grapes with a human voice! 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 53 


Precious grapes, indeed! Most wondrous and 
unique grapes of Allah’s creation!” 

“Pah!” The Thief of Bagdad spat disgust¬ 
edly. He let drop the bundle which, the camel’s- 
hair cloak dropping away, disclosed Bird-of- 
Evil, vigorously rubbing his haunches where 
they had struck the pavement and wailing nois¬ 
ily- 

“My darling,” continued the captain, nor 
unkindly, “the Caliph’s palace is not a healthy 
place for robbers.” 

“How dare you . . . . ” 

“I can see it in your eyes,” the other inter¬ 
rupted. “They are humorous eyes—yes! Lik¬ 
able eyes—yes, yes! But not honest eyes! And 

so-” came the cryptic warning—“be 

pleased to consider the fate of the donkey?” 

“What donkey, O swag-bellied ruffian?” 

“The donkey who traveled abroad looking 
for horns—and lost its ears! Beware, my 
friend! All day the place is watched by the 
Caliph’s soldiers. And all night—look!”—he 
pointed through the iron mesh of the door— 
“do you see these traps, these grooves and 
grottoes and cages ? They contain the warden’s 



54 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


of the night: man-eating striped tigers from 
Bengal, black-maned Nubian lions, and long- 
armed, dog-toothed gorillas from the far 
forests! Take heed, my clever bazar hound!” 

“It was your fault, Bird-of-Evil!” Ahmed 
turned to his friend when the captain had 
walked away. “Why did you move just as I 
was crossing the threshold?” 

“I could not help it! A flea bit me!” 

“And now a mule will kick you!” Ahmed 
raised his right foot. 

Bird-of-Evil squirmed rapidly away. 

“Wait! Wait!” he implored. “Wait until 
tonight! Then we shall climb the walls!” 

“Impossible, fool! They are too steep!” 

“You forget the magic rope!” 

“Right—by the Prophet’s toe-nails!” 

And so when night came, closing in over¬ 
head like an opaque dome of dark-green jade 
encrusted with a shimmering net of stars, drop¬ 
ping over sleeping Bagdad with a brown, clog¬ 
ging pall of silence, Ahmed and Bird-of-Evil 
went quietly on their way, the magic rope coiled 
about the former’s left arm. They reached the 
palace. It stabbed up to the sky’s dark tent 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 55 


with fantastic, purple outlines pierced here and 
their, where the slaves were still about some late 
duty, by glittering pencils of light. They stop¬ 
ped in the shadow-blotch of the outer wall that, 
at a height of twenty-odd feet, was crowned 
with an elaborate balustrade of carved, fretted, 
pink marble. They waited; listened, sucking 
in their breath. They could hear a captain of 
the night watch going the rounds, the steady 
tramp-tramp-tramp of his booted feet, a faint 
crackling of steel, the swish of his curved sabre 
scraping across stone flags. The sounds died 
away. Came other sounds—the voices of the 
savage beasts that guarded the palace, prowling 
and slinking about the garden: the vibrant 
growl of the lions beginning in a deep basso and 
ending in a shrill, stabbing treble; the angry 
hissing and spitting, as of enormous cats, of 
the great, ruddy Bengal tigers; the chirp and 
whistle—ludicrously in contrast to their size— 
of the long-armed gorillas. 

Ahmed uncoiled his rope. 

“Can you make it?” whispered Bird-of-Evil. 

“Easily.” 

“But—the lions and tigers . . . . ?” 


56 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Beyond the outerwall—I noticed it this 
afternoon—at a distance of a few feet is a 
second wall, a broad ledge with a door set in. 
Once on top of the outer wall, I can leap across 
to the ledge and fool those jungly pets. Then 
through the door and—for the rest—I shall rely 
on my nose, my fingers, and my luck.” 

“May Allah the One protect you!” mum¬ 
bled Bird-of-Evil piously. 

“Allah? Bah!” sneered the Thief of Bag¬ 
dad. “It is mine own strength and cleverness 
that will protect me! Wait down here, O 
ancient goat of my soul. Within the hour I 
shall be back with a king’s ransom tucked away 
in my breeches.” 

He tossed the rope into the air. He spoke 
the secret word. The rope obeyed. It stood 
straight. A minute later, climbing hand over 
hand, Ahmed was on top of the outer wall. He 
looked down into the flat, emerald-green eyes 
of a tiger that crouched below, swishing its tail 
from side to side and doubtless thinking that 
here was a late supper provided by Fate itself. 
Then, measuring the distance to the ledge with 
his eyes, he fooled both tiger and Fate by leap- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 57 


ing across, neatly, lithely, and safely. He 
opened the door that gave unto the ledge; and 
found himself in an empty hall. So, softly, 
warily, on naked, silent feet, he walked on 
through rooms and rooms and again rooms. 
All were empty of life. Some of them, beneath 
swinging ceiling lamps, lay ablaze with raw" 
clashing colors, others were in dull, somber 
shades which melted into each other; on, 
through corridors supported by pillars whose 
capitals were shaped into pendant lotus forms 
or crowned with fantastic, lateral struts carved 
into the likeness of horsemen or war-girt ele¬ 
phants. 

Finally he came to a great, oblong room. 
There was no furniture here except a tall in¬ 
cense burner on a twisted gold stand giving 
out spirals of scented, opalescent smoke, a num¬ 
ber of large, iron-bound chests and boxes, and 
a profusion of silken pillows where three enor¬ 
mous palace eunuchs, dressed in yellow gauze 
that gave a generous glimpse of the brown 
flesh beneath, were snoring loud enough to 
rouse the dead. 

“By the itching of his palms as well as by the 


58 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


sight of the boxes, the Thief of Bagdad knew 
that he had arrived in the Caliph’s treasure 
chamber. And, while the three eunuchs con¬ 
tinued to sleep the sleep of both the just and 
the unjust, he crept over to one of the chests; 
found it locked; found, furthermore, that the 
key to it was fastened so tightly to one of the 
eunuchs’ waist shawls that it was impossible to 
remove it; then, softly, slowly, inch by inch, he 
slid the chest along the floor until, without wak¬ 
ing the sleeper, he was able to lift the key to the 
lock. 

He turned it. The lock opened. He raised 
the lid; looked; suppressed a cry of pleasurable 
excitement. 

For there, in a shimmering heap, were jewels 
from all the corners of Asia: jasper from the 
Punjaub, rubies from Burma, turquoises from 
Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from 
Ceylon, flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, 
purple amethysts from Tartary, white crystal 
from Malwa, onyx from Persia, green jade and 
white jade from Amoy and from Turkestan, 
garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 59 


Socotra, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli 
from Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, 
pink diamonds from Hydarabad, violet dia¬ 
monds from Kafiristan, black, fire-veined 
agate from Dynbulpore. 

“If my breeches were only large enough to 
hold them all!” thought the Thief of Bagdad. 
“What shall I take first?” 

And he had just decided to start with a gor¬ 
geous string of evenly matched black pearls, 
had it already in his hand, when suddenly he 
sat up and listened. For, from not very far 
away, he heard the plaintive, minor cadences of 
a one-stringed Mongol lute; heard a high, soft 
voice lilting a Mongol song: 

ec In the pagoda of exquisite purity 
I hear each day the tinkle-tinkle 
Of my lost love's jade girdle gems. 
Looking from the carved , broad window 
Of the pagoda of exquisite purity, 

I see the unsullied waters of my grief 
Flow on in bleak undulation. 

1 see a stray cloud of my Mongol home land 


60 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Above the spire of the pagoda of exquisite 
purity , 

And the wild geese of Tartary flying over the 
river dunes . . . 



CHAPTER III 









CHAPTER III 


“And the wild geese of Tart ary flying over 
the river dunes ...” the voice quivered, 
light as thistledown. 

It was the voice of Fount-in-the-Forest who 
had been captured in battle seven years ago be¬ 
neath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants 
when the Caliph of Bagdad had gone into the 
East to fight the growing menace of the Khan 
of the Middle Horde. Daughter of a Mon¬ 
gol Prince, Fount-in-the-Forest had never for¬ 
gotten the steppes and snow-clad mountains of 
her far country; had always hated this Western 
land of Islam with a smoldering, undying pas¬ 
sion. She was attached to the personal service 
of the Princess Zobeid; and it was her duty, 
each night, to play and sing until her mistress 
fell asleep. 

So tonight. 

Her voice quivered on: 

“In the pagoda of exquisite purity. 

My thoughts roam — 

63 


64 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Roam out beyond the Jewel Gate 
Pass . . " 

She cut off her song on a high note, in mid¬ 
air. She looked at the Princess who lay on a 
canopied couch; turned to Zemzem, another 
slave girl, an Arab entirely devoted to her mis¬ 
tress ; put a finger to her lips. 

“The Heaven-Born sleeps,” she whispered; 
and the two slaves stepped softly from the 
apartment, the sounds of lute and song grow¬ 
ing fainter and fainter: 

ef Looking from the carved, broad window 

Of the pagoda of exquisite purity, 

In vain do I seek for the outlines of the 
White Jade House . . . 

The trembling cadences receded and Ahmed 
rose, the string of pearls in his hand. 

“Charming!” he thought, for he had a pretty 
taste in music. “Let us see if I, the Thief of 
Bagdad, am thief enough to steal a look at the 
singer!” 

He left the hall. He leaped up a flight of 



■ 5 V 


''MtA 

*W M » .« W 


SC 




The Mongolian slave girl discovered the trick of the propped dagger. 
v , {“The Thief of Bagdad. 
























THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 65 


stairs, side-stepping a huge Nubian watchman 
who was squatting on one of the steps, fast 
asleep, his ape-like arms crossed about the grip 
of his two-handed sword; he followed the sound 
of the music until he reached another staircase 
that swept down into an oblong room in an 
audacious curve of glistening, olive-veined mar¬ 
ble ; and, bending over the baluster, saw there, 
veiled by the thin silk of the canopy, the slum¬ 
bering Zobeid. 

Was it his fickleness? Or was it a sending of 
Kismet, of Fate? 

The ancient Arabic records which have 
brought down to us the tale of the Thief of 
Bagdad, are silent on the point. But they do 
tell us that, at that moment, at once, immedi¬ 
ately and completely, Ahmed forgot the singer 
in whose quest he had left the treasure chamber; 
saw only the sleeping Princess; thought only 
of her. That flower-like little face down there, 
on the silken pillow, drew him like a magnet. 
He vaulted over the baluster; landed on his' 
feet, softly, with a plop like a great cat; crossed 
over to the couch; looked at Zobeid; listened to 


66 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


her gentle breathing; and felt a new sensation, 
a strange sensation, a sensation that was sweet 
with a great longing yet gall-bitter with a great 
pain, tugging at his heart strings. 

“Love at first sight,” the ancient records call 
it laconically. 

But whatever it was, love at first sight or 
love at second sight—and he did look a second 
time, looked long, looked ardently, could not 
turn his eyes away—it was to him as if, sud¬ 
denly, they were alone, she and he, alone in the 
palace, alone in Bagdad, alone in all the world. 
The canopy which peaked above the couch 
seemed charged to the brim with some over¬ 
powering loveliness of wild and simple things, 
like the beauty of stars and wind and flowers, 
with something which all his life subconsciously 
his heart seemed to have craved in vain, com- 1 
pared to which his life of yesterday was only 
a drab, wretched, useless dream. 

Hardly knowing what he was doing and why, 
he crouched by the side of the couch. Hardly 
knowing what he was doing and why, care¬ 
lessly dropping the necklace for the sake of 
which he had risked so many dangers, he picked 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 67 


up one of the Princess’ tiny, embroidered slip¬ 
pers. He pressed it to his lips. 

The next moment Zobeid stirred slightly in 
her sleep. One narrow, white hand slipped 
over the edge of the couch. 

The Thief of Bagdad smiled. Obeying a 
mad, irresistible impulse, he bent over the little 
hand. 

He kissed it. Kissed it so gently. Not gently 
enough. For the Princess awakened. She gave 
a startled cry. She sat up, flinging the 
silken, padded coverlet aside. Quickly Ahmed 
dropped to the ground; and it was his luck that 
the coverlet fell over him, swathing him in its 
heavy folds, hiding him completely from the 
Princess’ sight; from the sight, too, of the slave 
girls who came running at their mistress’ out¬ 
cry, and of the eunuchs and the Nubian watch¬ 
man who rushed in, curved sabres poised in 
brawny fists, searching for the miscreant. 

They looked all about the room, finding 
nothing, while Ahmed crouched beneath the 
coverlet, motionless, sucking in his breath. 

“The Heaven-Born must have dreamt it,” 
said the Mongol slave girl to the Princess who 


68 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


insisted that somebody had touched her hand, 
and she persuaded her finally to close her eyes 
again. But the chief eunuch whispered to the 
Nubian that, indeed, a robber must have en¬ 
tered the palace since one of the treasure chests 
had been opened; and so the three eunuchs, the 
Nubian, and the Arab slave girl went to make 
a thorough search of the other rooms in this part 
of the harem, while Fount-in-the-Forest re¬ 
mained behind, once more singing her plaintive 
Mongol song: 

“In the pagoda of exquisite purity 
My heart sighs—sighs for the bright moon 
Above the Tartar steppes . . . 

until, gradually, Zobeid fell asleep again. 

Fount-in-the-Forest stooped to pick up the 
coverlet. Then, suddenly, she became frozen 
into frightened immobility, swallowed the cry 
that bubbled to her lips when a brown fist, 
armed with a dagger, jerked out from the silken 
folds, and a low voice whispered warning: 

“Keep quiet, little sister! Turn your back! 
Gently—gently does it!” as, the dagger 
pricking her skin, she obeyed, turning on her 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 69 


heel and facing the other way. “And now— 
walk slowly! Toward the door over yonder! 
Do not turn and look! Gently! Gently! This 
knife of mine is thirsty for young blood!” 

She was helpless. Propelled by the pricking, 
tickling dagger, she preceded Ahmed to a nar¬ 
row door set into the farther wall. With the 
help of a small cushion that he had picked up 
on the way he propped the hilt of the dagger 
against the door jamb and quickly withdrew 
his hand so that the point of the weapon still 
remained resting lightly against the slave girl’s 
bare, smooth skin. She was not aware of the 
trick, and stayed rigid and motionless, while 
he turned softly, to make his escape. But be¬ 
fore he left the room he decided that he would 
take one more look at the sleeping Princess. 
He hurried back to the couch. He stared at 
Zobeid who was slumbering peacefully. He 
felt again love sweeping through his soul as 
with the mighty whirring of wings; and he 
bent . . . when, suddenly— “Hai!” —a stifled 
scream warned him, brought him up standing, 
made him turn. 

“Hdl Hair 


70 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Again the scream. For Fount-in-the-Forest 
had discovered the trick of the propped dagger. 
She was yelling for help. Already, from the 
next room, came hurrying footsteps, clamoring 
voices. 

The Thief of Bagdad laughed. He picked 
up Zobeid’s little slipper. He left behind him 
magic rope and pearl necklace. He ran towarc£ 
the window; leaped through; landed in a tree 
not far from the garden wall. The tree curved 
beneath his weight, and, using it like a catapult, 
he launched himself across the wall and drop¬ 
ped to the ground on the street outside, a short 
distance from the place where Bird-of-Evil was 
waiting for him. 

“Ah!” exclaimed the latter, excitedly. What 
loot did you bring? Pearls? Diamonds? Bed, 
red rubies?” 

“No,” replied the Thief of Bagdad. “I 
found a far greater treasure! More precious 
than all the jewels in the world!” 

“Show it to me!” 

“I cannot!” 

“Why not? Where is it?” 

“It is here!” replied the Thief of Bagdad, 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 71 


holding high the little slipper. “It is here!” 
he continued, touching his forehead. “It is 
here!” he wound up, putting his hand on his 
heart. 

And, refusing to say more, Ahmed stalked 
off into the fantastic, purple night, while Bird- 
of-Evil followed him, puzzled, perplexed, 
speculating, trying to read the riddle of the 
other’s words. 

“It is here ....?” he echoed. “And 
here? And here? But—where—where— 
where . . . by Beelzebub, Father of Lies and 
Fleas ....?” 

They reached the abandoned well. 

“Where—where? Tell me—where is it?” 
he repeated. 

Ahmed did not reply. He lay on his couch, 
unable to find sleep, staring into the void, 
silent, brooding, morose; and, silent, brooding, 
morose, he lay on the ledge near the fountain 
on the Square of the One-Eyed Jew the next 
morning, hardly noticing the festive crowds 
that thronged the streets of Bagdad the Gol¬ 
den to welcome the three great Princes who 
came today as suitors for Zobeid’s hand. 



72 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


There, seeing his friend day-dreaming, re¬ 
gardless of the loot that might be his for a 
twisting and tugging of his agile fingers, all 
at once the answer to the riddle came to Bird- 
of-Evil. 

“It is here—and here—and here!” he 
laughed. He addressed Ahmed. “Tell me— 
are you in love?” 

“I am!” admitted Ahmed. “Hopelessly!” 

“Hopelessly . . . ?” 

“Yes!” 

“Why? Who is she? Is she Ayesha, the 
daughter of the rich saddle-maker? Or Fath- 
ma, first-born of the Syrian goldsmith? Or is 
she belike . . . ? Wall!” Bird-of-Evil inter¬ 
rupted himself. “Just tell me her name. I 
myself shall be the marriage broker. I am a 
clever hand at that sort of thing. Well—who 
is she?” 

“She is Zobeid, the daughter of the Caliph! 
Allah-” Ahmed sighed. “She is unob¬ 

tainable—like flowers of air!” 

“Nothing in the world is unobtainable,” said 
the other, who loved the younger man dearly, 
deep in his gnarled old heart. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 73 


“.You cannot catch the winds of heaven with 
your bare hands! You cannot fish for the ipoon 
reflected in the water!” 

“And why not? A Princess, is she? What 
of it? Once upon a time a Princess was car¬ 
ried off under the very nose of her father, the 
great Caliph Haroun el-Rashid.” 

“How was it done?” demanded Ahmed. 

“With the help of a subtle Egyptian drug. 
Eat the drug. Drink it. Or simply smell it. 
It will put you to sleep—will make you help¬ 
less. I shall get you the drug. Today. Im¬ 
mediately. And then we shall enter the pal- 
ace . . . 

“Enter the palace? How?” asked the Thief 
of Bagdad. 

AheeT laughed Bird-of-Evil. “Why does 
love render its victims so helpless, so foolish, so 
utterly silly?” He was silent as from the dis¬ 
tance came the loud rubbing and thumping of 
silver kettle drums and the bull-like roar of 
long-stemmed trumpets. “Listen to the 
drums,” he went on. “The heralds are an¬ 
nouncing the arrival of the princely suitors at 
the city gates. Come! We have little time to 


74 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


lose.” He took Ahmed by the arm and ran 
with him across the Square. “I shall go and 
procure the drug. Do you in the meantime go 
to the Bazar of the Persian Silk-Weavers and 
see if your hands are less dreamy and useless 
than your head. For we need costly raiment. 
Embroidered cloaks! Gold-threaded slippers 
of state! Gorgeous turban clothes! A few 
handsome jewels! Some fine weapons! And 
—before I forget it—go to the caravanserai of 
the Tartar traders! Get us a horse—and a 
donkey . . .” 

“What for—what for?” demanded Ahmed. 

“To attain the impossible! Flowers of air; 
ropes of tortoise hair; horns upon a cat; and— 
the hand of the Princess Zobeid! Hurry— 
hurry! And meet me, within the hour, at the 
Gate of Lions!” 

And they ran off while— bang! banng! 
bannng !—thumped the distant kettle drums, 
while the Princes of Asia rode through the 
crowded streets of Bagdad, and while Zobeid 
watched from behind her screened window. 

Early that morning, while Fount-in-the- 


THE THIEF OF EAGDAD 75 


Forest had slipped from the apartment upon 
a devious and gliding purpose of her own, 
Zobeid had called to Zemzem, her faithful Arab 
slave. 

“Zemzem!” the Princess had said. “I am 
afraid of the future. Allah! Allah! What 
does the future hold for me?” 

“Ask Therrya, the Bedawin fortune-teller,” 
Zemzem had suggested. “She will read the 
tale of your Fate in the shifting sands.” 

They had sent for Therrya, who had come, 
had squatted down, had heaped a handful of 
Meccan sand on a porcelain tray and—by this 
time Fount-in-the-Forest had returned from 
her mysterious errand and was watching tense¬ 
ly—had blown upon it until, slowly, gradually, 
the golden sand grains had taken on the hazy 
outlines of a rose. 

“Heaven-Born!” the fortune-teller had said. 
“The signs are clear. Whoever of your suit¬ 
ors will be the first to touch the rose tree in 
your garden—the great, crimson rose tree just 
below your window—him Allah the All- 
Powerful has destined to be your husband!” 

And now, as the gates opened to admit the 


76 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


three Princes, Zobeid’s eyes glanced anxiously 
at the rose tree—the rose tree that spelled her 
Fate—the rose tree below her window that was 
straight in the path down which her suitors had 
to come on their way from the outer gate to 
the broad entrance door of the palace itself. 

There was a loud bellowing and roaring and 
trumpeting as a huge white elephant ambled 
through the gate, carrying upon its back, sit¬ 
ting cross-legged in a golden howdah, a tall 
man attired in a splendid cloth-of-silver cos¬ 
tume, the arms encircled by jeweled bracelets, 
shimmering necklaces of pearls and moon¬ 
stones hanging to his waist shawl, a naked, 
straight, six-foot blade across his knees. He 
was preceded and followed by mounted retain¬ 
ers, all gorgeously dressed, their beards dyed 
red with henna or blue with indigo, and curled 
and split on both sides of their brown cheeks so 
that they stabbed up like rams’ horns. 

The Caliph’s herald turned to the Bagdad 
dignitaries, the officers and green-turbaned 
priests, the chiefs of tribes and ministers of the 
household and rich, paunchy merchants, who 
thronged the garden. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 77 


“The Prince of all the Indies!” he announced 
in a clear, ringing voice, waving his diamond- 
tipped staff of office. “The Ruler of the South! 
The Descendant of Hindustan’s many Gods! 
The Harrasser of his Foes! The Cousin to 
Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahm! He, whose palace 
is said to glow with the crimson sheen of a hun- 
drd thousand rubies!” 

“Ah”—whispered Zemzem into Zobeid’s 
ear—“he is rich and powerful and glorious!” 

“Indeed!” Zobeid stared through the marble 
screen that covered the window. She scanned 
the Prince’s face. She made a little grimace. 
“No, no!” she continued. “I do not like him 
for all his rubies! Haughty he seems—and 
cold—and stern—and forbidding!” She raised 
clasped hands. “O Allah!” she prayed fer¬ 
vently. “Grant that he may not touch the rose 
tree!” 

And Allah listened to her prayer. For sud¬ 
denly the elephant swerved and turned to one 
side. Zobeid laughed happily; then looked to¬ 
ward the gate as the herald announced the 
Prince of Persia, surrounded by mounted, raw- 
boned, steel-clad, hard-riding warriors, while he 


78 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


himself was reclining luxuriously on a silken 
litter slung between two shaggy Bactrian 
dromedaries, ocassionally dipping a plump, be- 
ringed hand into a jewled box and helping 
himself liberally to pink and rose-red sweet¬ 
meats. 

“Khalaf Mansur Nasir-ud-din Nadir Khan 
Kuli Khan Durani, Prince and King of Per¬ 
sia,” proclaimed the herald, “Shah-in-Shah of 
Khorassan and Azerbaian, Khan of the Kizil- 
bashis and . . . . ” 

“Oh! Zemzem! Look at him!” exclaimed 
Zobeid while the herald continued the recital of 
the many grandiose titles. “Does he not look 
exactly like a pig—with his fat, pink cheeks— 
his fat, pink button of a nose—his short, round 
body? And his little mustache! Is it not ex¬ 
actly like a pig’s curling tail . . . . ?” 

An unflattering description. But true. For, 
whatever his tough-thewed ancestors, this 
Prince of Persia had forgotten their prowess in 
the pleasures of the table, was valiant with 
steel only where the carving of juicy mutton 
joints and not the cutting-off of enemies’ heads 
was concerned; and the ancient Arab chronicles 



THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 79 


relate that it took three strong men to lift him 
to his throne, and seven yards of cloth to make 
a shawl for his enormous stomach. 

“His nightly dinner,” says the ancient chroni¬ 
cle, “consisted of a goose stuffed with a duck, 
the duck stuffed with a chicken, the chicken 
with a quail, the quail with a pigeon, the pigeon 
with a lark, and the lark with an oyster. He 
had a thirst worthy of those Scottish barbarians 
of whom our traveling merchants bring fantas¬ 
tic tales. He looked, to the casual observer, like 
a huge balloon filled with seventy times seventy 
pounds of grease and wobbly flesh . . . . ” 

A statement to which Zobeid agreed. 

“A balloon!” she exclaimed. “Why—the 
man is made of lard! Oh—Allah—do Thou 
keep this mountain of fat from touching my 
rose tree!” 

But there was small danger of that. For, 
even had he wished it, even had he known the 
fortune-teller’s prophecy, his huge bulk would 
have made it impossible for him to lean from 
the litter and touch the odorous, red-blooming 
tree. 

“Praised be Allah the One!” exclaimed 


80 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Zobeid while, without her noticing it, Fount- 
in-the-Forest, an idea shaping rapidly in her 
shrewd brain, slipped out of the room, down a 
secret stair-case into the garden where, a few 
minutes later, a veil hiding her features, she 
mingled with the retinue of Cham Sheng, 
Prince of the Mongols, who just then was en¬ 
tering the palace grounds with pomp and cir¬ 
cumstance. 

Once before, earlier in the day, she had com¬ 
municated with the Mongols. For her soul 
was seared with hate against the Arabs, the 
Moslems, who had enslaved her, and there was 
in her the wish and hope that Cham Sheng, her, 
countryman, might wed Zobeid and, after the 
Caliph’s death, bring the dominion of Bagdad 
under the Mongols’ spurred heel. 

A wish, incidentally, quite in keeping with 
that of Cham Sheng himself. 

He was different, in every last characteristic, 
from the Prince of India and the Prince of 
Persia. There was about the latter, for all his 
ludicrous looks and sensuous living, a certain 
soft, ingenuous lovableness, and about the 
former a sweeping, godlike nobility. But the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 81 


Mongol was of the earth earthy; his was an 
enormous ruthlessness of purpose, a cruel am¬ 
bition, a stupendous, racial vigor and crunch¬ 
ing strength. Time and again he had said to 
Wong K’ai, his confidential advisor, a man 
educated in the Palace of August and Happy 
Wisdom in Pekin’s Tartar City, that he would 
take Bagdad: either by marrying the Princess 
or, should he fail in this, by an unhallowed 
trinity of intrigue, patience, and force. 

“Perhaps,” Wong K’ai had said, “such is the 
will of the many blessed gods.” 

“It is mine own will, fool!” the other had 
sneered. “Mine own will—stronger than the 
will of all the many gods put together!” 

When early in the morning Fount-in-the- 
Forest had visited the Mongol encampment, 
she had assured Wong K’ai that, a Mongol to 
the core of her, she would do all in her power 
to further the Mongol Prince’s cause. Now 
here she was again, mingling with the retinue 
and presently, having reached Wong K’ai’s 
side, whispering to him the secret of the rose 
tree and the fortune-teller’s prophecy. 

“These Arabs,” she added contemptuously, 


82 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“are superstitious. They believe in such por¬ 
tents.” 

“Ten thousand thanks!” replied Wong K’ai. 
“Exquisite and charming honors shall be thine 
when Cham Sheng shall plant the standard of 
the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon upon the 
walls of Bagdad!” 

And, entering the Prince’s palanquin, he 
brought to his master the slave girl’s message. 

This palanquin was an immense affair. Built 
on a marble platform, reached front and back 
by broad stairs and carried on the shoulders of 
a hundred red-faced warriors, it resembled a 
Chinese pagoda, surmounted by a peaked 
cupola. The walls of the pagoda were of mal¬ 
achite and jasper, carved into an inter-lacing 
scroll work of plum-blossoms and wind-swept 
reeds, while the cupola was of gold and inlaid 
with crystal, ivory, white and green jade, tur- 
maline and agate, in a design of great, coiling 
dragons. The palanquin was surrounded by 
Tartar, Mongol, and Manchu horsemen, each 
riding under a flag painted with the device of 
his tribe or clan. There was here the banner 
of the White Tiger, the banner of the Red 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 83 


Tiger, of the Azure Dragon, of the Purple 
Light, of Sublime Union, and a hundred more; 
and, greater than all the other banners, carried 
by two gigantic, yellow-skinned priests, the 
banner of the Buddha of the Paradise of the 
West and the banner of the Buddha of the 
Light without Measure. 

Thus the procession entered the grounds, 
while the Caliph’s herald announced the 
princely visitor: 

“Cham Sheng, Prince of the Mongols, King 
of Ho Sho, Khan of the Golden Horde, Khan 
of the Silver Horde . . . .” 

“Heaven-Born!” cried Zemzem. “Look— 
look . . 

“Oh!” 

For the palanquin had stopped. Its front 
door was thrown wide open; and, slowly, 
majestically, his tall, lean form robed in crim¬ 
son satin embroidered over the right shoulder 
with a five-clawed, golden dragon, a carved 
jade sceptre in his left hand, Cham Sheng 
came down the steps, into the garden. 

When Zobeid saw him she shuddered. His 
face was butter-yellow, with high cheekbones; 


84 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and there was in his narrow-lidded, purple- 
black eyes the infinite, cruel, passionless look 
of one who has gazed too much on danger and 
death and desolation, without ever feeling the 
pity and shame and sorrow of it. 

“Oh!” sobbed Zobeid. “He chills my blood 
with fear!” 

And she shook as if in an ague, while Fount- 
in-the-Forest changed shrill, triumphant laugh¬ 
ter into a cough, and while, a thin, ironic smile 
curling his bloodless lips, the Prince of the 
Mongols, as if aimlessly, negligently, with all 
his slow racial dignity, turned toward the rose 
tree. 

“O Allah! Help me, All-Merciful Allah!” 
came Zobeid’s heartbroken sob. “Please! 
Please! Do not permit him to touch the rose 
tree . . . 

But prayers were forgotten, fear was for¬ 
gotten the very next moment when, with the 
Caliph’s herald announcing the arrival of yet 
another suitor, she looked toward the outer 
gate. 

“Why . . . . ” Zemzem made wondering 
comment—“I thought there were only three 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 85 


Princes coming to woo you! And here comes 
a fourth! Who might he be . . . . ?” 

“Who might he be?” echoed Fount-in-the- 
Forest, with angry suspicion. 

“Who might he be?” echoed the curious 
crowd in the garden. 

“Who might he be?” echoed Cham Sheng to 
Wong K’ai in a low voice. 

“Who might he be?” echoed Zobeid, a 
strange, sweet sensation clutching her heart. 

And the herald gave answer: 

“Ahmed, Prince of the Isles and of the Seven 
Palaces!” 

“By the Excellent Lord Buddha!” whis¬ 
pered Cham Sheng to his confidential clerk. 
“There is no such rank or title!” 

And he turned away from the rose tree with¬ 
out touching it to stare at Ahmed, who rode 
toward the palace, superbly mounted on a 
stolen, snow-white stallion, superbly robed in 
stolen, gold-threaded brocade, superbly armed 
with stolen, jeweled scimitar and battle-ax, fol¬ 
lowed by Bird-of-Evil, perched like a monkey 
on a tiny, grey donkey, his finery only a shade 
less costly than Ahmed’s. The latter rode his 


86 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


horse well, with a loose rein and long stirrups, 
swaying gracefully in the saddle. High in the 
air he carried his head, and when he came trot¬ 
ting beneath Zobeid’s window, she smiled. 

‘‘Ah!” she said to Zemzem. “He rides like 
a Prince! He looks like a Prince! He is the 
Prince for me! Allah! Permit him to touch 
the rose tree—as he has already touched my 
heart!” 

Fount-in-the-Forest stood by her mistress’ 
side. She wondered, puzzled: who was this 
Prince of the Isles? Where had she seen 
him . . . . ? 

Down in the garden Wong K’ai was whisper¬ 
ing to his master that, as to this new suitor’s 
rank and titles, he would look into them pres¬ 
ently; but in the meantime . . . “Please, 
O Great Dragon! Remember the fortune¬ 
teller’s prophecy! Remember the Arab super¬ 
stition! Whoever is first to touch the rose 
tree . . . .” 

“Yes, yes!” replied Cham Sheng. 

He stepped forward; and while, horror- 
struck, Zobeid watched, he raised a thin, yellow 
hand to pluck one of the flowers. 



THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 87 


At which precise moment, up in the Seventh 
Hall of the Blessed, the Angle of the Scrolls, 
the Black-Winged Angel of Destiny, hearing 
Zobeid’s silent prayers to Allah, decided to 
interfere. He interfered by ordering a tiny 
honey-bee that had been sucking at the rose’s 
sugary heart to fly out suddenly with a whirring 
of brown-and-gold wings, to light on the Mon¬ 
gol Prince’s hand before he could touch the 
blossom, to sting him painfully, and to cause 
him to recede a few steps. A moment later, 
perhaps to make assurance doubly sure, the 
Angel of the Scrolls ordered the same little 
honey-bee to fly from Cham Sheng’s hand unto 
the back of Ahmed’s horse. The horse became 
frightened. It bucked and reared; and before 
the Thief of Bagdad could pull down on the 
snaffle and gain control over his nervous mount, 
it catapulted him out of the saddle, shot him 
through the air in an audacious curve, and 
deposited him in the very midst of the rose tree. 

The Princess broke into peals of laughter. 

“By Allah!” she exclaimed. “Behold! He 
has touched the rose tree!” 

“Touched it ?” commented Zemzem, echoing 


88 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


her mistress’ laughter. “Why—he has nearly 
crushed it!” 

Ahmed accepted the accident with supreme 
unself consciousness. Calmly he plucked one of 
the roses, stuck it in his waist shawl, and 
jumped lightly out of the tree and to the 
ground, not far from Cham Sheng, who spoke 
to him gliding, low words of bitter irony. 

“How tragic it would have been, O great 
Prince of the Isles, if the horse had killed you 
and—ah—ended your doubtless ancient and 
illustrious dynasty!” 

He turned away, while Bird-of-Evil drew 
his friend to one side. 

“The Mongol pig suspects you,” he whis¬ 
pered. “Hurry up, soul of my soul, and steal 
the Princess. Here!”—pressing a small crystal 
bottle into his hand. “This is the drug. And 
—here—take this bit of cloth. Sprinkle a few 
drops of the drug on it and . . . . ” 

“No, no!” interrupted the Thief of Bagdad. 
“I shall sprinkle the drug on the rose—the rose 
of destiny . . . .” 

And he opened the bottle and saturated the 
crimson flower with the subtle Egyptian liquid. 



CHAPTER IV 






CHAPTER IV 


Half an hour earlier, while the Prince of 
India was entering the palace grounds, Bird- 
of-Evil had asked a pert-eyed, golden-skinned 
slave girl how to reach the back entrance to the 
Princess Zobeid’s apartment. He had employed 
methods peculiarly his own, combining bribery, 
flattery, and—in spite of his shriveled, wizen 
outer man—open, rather riotous love making. 

“Tell me, Rejoicer of Souls!” he had whis¬ 
pered to her. “For, when the ceremonies are 
over, I must see thee! Aye! I must! For 
thou art a hud to he worn in the turban of my 
heart! I would like to he thy lover, O Small, 
Soft Thing! I would like to crush thy lips 
with mine! Tell me the way, O Moon of my 
Delight!” 

She had told him; and now he was following 
her directions, taking Ahmed around the cor¬ 
ner of the main garden path to a wall, topped 
by a parapet that surrounded a loggia and 
91 


92 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


covered all the way up by a strong-stemmed, 
flowering vine. 

“I shall wait below,” he said. “If anybody 
approaches I shall whistle twice—like a crane. 
Up with you!” 

So up went the Thief of Bagdad, using the 
vine like a rope ladder, reached the parapet, 
leaped over it, and found himself in the pres¬ 
ence of Zobeid, who had heard the noise and, a 
strange premonition in her soul, had come on 
a run. They faced each other. He did not 
speak. Silently he offered her the drugged 
rose. She took it. She was about to inhale its 
perfume when, dropping her hand, she asked 
a low-voiced question: 

“Do you love me. Prince of the Isles?” 

She stood there, without moving, her eyes 
starry, her lips parted: expectant she seemed, 
and triumphant, and yet a little frightened. 
He came a step nearer. He sensed the magic of 
her beauty, her presence, with the blurred indis¬ 
tinctness of overwhelming tenderness. 

“Yes—yes . . . .” he said—“I love 
you . . . .” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 93 

“How much do you love me, Prince of the 
Isles?” 

“I love you—oh—with all of me! To hold 
you I would throw a noose around the far stars. 
I would give you all I have, all I am, all I ever 
shall be, and it would not be the thousandth 
part of my love for you.” 

“And I”—she whispered—“I love you!” 

She was about to raise the drugged flower to 
her face when, suddenly, a revulsion of feeling 
swept over Ahmed. Yes—he said to himself— 
he loved her. He needed her. He wanted her. 
He could not do without her. Life without her 
would be as salt, as pain, as bitter as gall. But 
she must become his of her own free will, not 
through intrigue and stratagem and deceit and 
subtle Egyptian drug. He was on the point 
of confessing, of telling her: “I am a nobody! 
I am the Thief of Bagdad!” But words would 
not come to him. The shame of it choked him. 
He drew her to him. As if by accident, his 
fingers playing with hers, he slipped the rose 
from her hand and crushed it in his waist shawl. 
Almost immediately he released her. He ran 
back to the parapet. 


94 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“No—no—” he stammered; and, like a 
thousand lovers since the beginning of Allah’s 
creation, like a thousand lovers until the end of 
Allah’s creation, he spoke words, so usual, so 
commonplace, so trite, and which he felt and 
knew to be so intensely true: “I am not worthy 
of you, Zobeid! Not worthy of you!” And 
he leaped over the parapet and, climbing down 
rapidly, reached the ground. 

When Bird-of-Evil saw him, alone, without 
the Princess, he spread angry, impatient hands. 

“Where is she?” he demanded. “Did you 
not give her the drug?” 

“I could not,” Ahmed replied. 

“Why not?” 

“You—you would not understand!” 

“Wouldn’t I? Tell me! Tell me!” 

“Very well. I would not use the drug—be¬ 
cause I love her!” 

“You are a fool!” 

“Doubtless!” 

And Ahmed turned away, to leave the gar¬ 
den, to leave the palace grounds, to leave Bag¬ 
dad. But it was too late. For, hardly had he 
turned the corner of the main path, when there 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 95 


came to meet him a number of palace officials 
who salaamed deeply and spoke polite words: 

“We have searched everywhere for you. The 
Caliph of Bagdad awaits the princely suitors. 
Be pleased to come with us, O Prince of the 
Isles!” 

So Kismet engulfed the Thief of Bagdad in 
its merciless whirlpool while Zobeid—slyly 
laughing at what she thought to be her lover’s 
shyness, loving him the more because of it— 
sent a message to her father that she had made 
up her mind: 

“Four are the Princes of Asia who ask for 
my hand. From India comes one. He is the 
descendant of the many gods of his people. But 
shall I choose for the sake of birth? From 
Persia comes the second. His wealth is as the 
sands of the desert. But shall I choose for the 
sake of riches? From far, yellow Mongolia 
comes the third. Him a million steel-clad riders 
follow into battle. But shall I choose for the 
sake of power? There is yet a fourth Prince. 
I do not know if he be rich or powerful, nor 
what his ancestry. But him I love, and him 


96 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


I choose, as, according to immemorial tradition, 
those of my race have always chosen the ones 
whom they love, as thou, father mine, years ago, 
didst choose my dead mother—may her soul 
dwell in Paradise!” 

And, sitting on his jewled peacock throne 
in the great hall of audiences, the Caliph of 
Bagdad smiled as he thought of his daughter’s 
message. 

The hall of audiences was an immense quad¬ 
rangle. Up to a height of twenty feet the walls 
were covered with ivory and snowy enamel skil¬ 
fully blended with shiny-white lac and overlaid 
with a silver-threaded spider’s web of ara¬ 
besques as exquisite as the finest lace. The 
upper part of the walls, above a broad strip of 
quotations from the Koran carved from black 
marble, was a procession, a panorama of fresco 
paintings—an epitome, a resume, of all Islam’s 
proud history. There was an immense dazzle- 
ment of light from a hundred crystal chande¬ 
liers ; catching the vivid flutter of the war ban¬ 
ners where the chiefs of the outer tribes were 
squatting at the back of the hall; rousing the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 97 


silken gowns of the Bagdad dignitaries who sat 
cross-legged on pillows to the left of the pea¬ 
cock throne into tulip brilliancies of purples 
and blues and yellows and reds; stabbing gold 
and silver into the splendid robes of the three 
Princes—not to forget the fourth, the self- 
styled Prince of the Isles—who were just be¬ 
low the throne, facing it. 

The Prince of India carried his head high. 
He was a descendant of the gods, cousin-in¬ 
blood to Vishnu the Creator, Shiva the Pre¬ 
server, Doorga the Destroyer. Sure he was of 
his Fate. Zobeid would be his. How could it 
be otherwise? 

The Prince of Persia was stuffing his mouth 
with candied violets. He was rich. No woman 
could withstand riches. By Allah—he thought 
—this soft little Zobeid would be sweeter than 
all the sweetmeats that he had swallowed in all 
his life!—and so, in the meantime, he helped 
himself to another piece of candy. 

The Prince of the Mongols seemed inscrut¬ 
able; like a golden statue. He would win the 
Princess, happen what may. If not today, then 
tomorrow. He was a Mongol. He came from 


98 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


the cold, cruel, stony North. His will was 
stronger than the will of all the household gods, 
stronger even than the will of the Excellent 
Lord Gautama Buddha. 

Only the Prince of the Isles was oppressed. 
Shame was searing his brain and soul like a red- 
hot lance point. He did not look up, paid no 
attention to Bird-of-Evil, who stood in back of 
him, whispering into his ear. 

The Caliph rose. 

“It is the immemorial custom of my fam¬ 
ily,” he said, “that when princely suitors come 
from the far corners of the earth to woo a 
daughter of the house of Bagdad, she may fol¬ 
low the dictates of her own heart. Four 
Princes came today. I am honored.” He 
bowed gracefully. “My daughter watched 
them from the balcony. She has chosen. She 
has chosen the man whom she loves. To him 
she sends her ring as a token.” 

And he gave to the herald who approached 
a narrow gold band set with great ruby-red 
pearls in the shape of two joined hearts. 

Came a great thumping of silver kettle 
drums; a blaring of long-stemmed trumpets; a 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 99 


waving of banners, while the herald stepped 
down from the throne. He passed by the 
Prince of India, the Prince of Persia, the 
Prince of the Mongols. He stopped in front 
of the Prince of the Isles, salaamed deeply, and 
slipped the ring on Ahmed’s finger. 

Then cheers rose, rending the air. The dig¬ 
nitaries of the court, the chiefs of the outer 
tribes, the priests and merchants and slaves 
and eunuchs who pressed into the hall from the 
garden, laughed and shouted. 

Cheer after cheer, full-throated, triumphant, 
bloating, rising ever higher. But, too, grum¬ 
bling, bitter words as the three Princes com¬ 
plained and protested that the choice was mani¬ 
festly unfair. What?—they demanded—Zo- 
beid did not choose me , the descendant of the 
gods; nor me, whose riches were uncounted; 
nor me, whom a million warriors followed into 
battle? Listen, listen, Heaven-Born . . . 

they surrounded the Caliph, who had left the 
peacock throne, with noisy clamorings. 

But the ruler of Bagdad smiled. He stroked 
his long, white beard, and declared that the 
choice was final. 


100 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“My friends,” he implored, “do not behave 
like naughty children. I grant you—for I am 
a proud father—that there is no woman in all 
Asia to equal Zobeid in beauty and charm and 
the many accomplishments. But even so, do not 
challenge the decrees of Fate! Do not be¬ 
grudge the Prince of the Isles his victory! Be 
generous! Come—and drown your sorrow in 
clinking goblets and rich food!” 

And, while they continued to protest and 
grumble, he led them toward the banquet hall 
where a splendid feast had been prepared. 

Ahmed had used the commotion and excite¬ 
ment to slip, unnoticed, into the garden. 

“Where are you going?” demanded Bird- 
of-Evil, trotting at his heels like a dog. 

“Away from here!” 

“But—the Princess Zobeid . . .” 

“I will not stoop to deceit and lies . . .” 

“Pah!” sneered the other. “The tom-cat 
eats a thousand chickens—then he goes on 
pilgrimage to the holy places! You are a thief!” 

“I know! And I will steal everything— 
everything—including the Prophet Moham¬ 
med’s green mantle and diamond crown! But 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 101 

I will not steal the heart of the one whom I 
love!” 

So he ran down the garden path when, sud¬ 
denly, as he passed a small marble pavilion, he 
heard soft words, turned, looked, and saw 
there, Zobeid, who walked up to him. 

“My lord,” she said, “my slaves brought word 
to me that you left the hall and came to the 
garden. You came to see me—to seek me— 
didn’t you? Ah—I knew it! And I came to 
see you —to seek you . . . . ” 

She lifted her face to his, to kiss him. But 
he shook his head. He dropped the ring into 
her hand. Then, in simple words, he told her 
the truth: 

“I am not a Prince. I am a nobody, an out¬ 
cast. I am a thief.” 

“A thief ...” Fount-in-the-Forest who, 
unnoticed, had followed her mistress and was 
hiding in a thick clump of trees close by, echoed 
to herself. All at once she remembered where 
and when she had seen Ahmed. Why—he was 
the robber who last night had entered Zobeid’s 
room, who had threatened her with the dagger, 
and had escaped through the window. 


102 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Swiftly she ran back to the palace. She 
sought out Wong K’ai, the Mongol Prince’s 
confidential adviser, and told him what she had 
discovered. Wong K’ai lost no time. He en¬ 
tered the banquet hall. He whispered in Cham 
Sheng’s ear. The latter rose. He addressed 
the Caliph. 

“Your Majesty,” he said, “desecration most 
foul has been brought upon your ancient dy¬ 
nasty. The escutcheon of the Bagdad Caliphs 
has been sullied. This Ahmed—he who calls 
himself Prince of the Isles, he to whom your 
daughter has promised her heart and hand—is 
nothing hut an imposter, a common thief, whose 
kingdom is bazar and market-place and whose 
wealth what is contained in other men’s 
pockets!” And when the Caliph stammered 
that he did not believe it, that it was impossible, 
the Mongol went on: “There is no doubt of it. 
One of the Princess’ slave girls recognized him. 
Nor will he himself dare to deny it.” 

The Caliph turned to his armed attendants. 
He shook in a palsy of fury. 

“Bring me this Ahmed, this thief!” he thun¬ 
dered. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 103 


At once servants, soldiers, and eunuchs 
poured through the palace and the grounds 
while, in the garden pavilion, Ahmed was im¬ 
ploring Zobeid to forgive him the arrogance of 
his love for the sake of the greatness of his love. 

“I saw you last night,” he said. “I was the 
robber who entered your apartment. And I— 
oh—I could not help it. Life without you— 
why—it was like the starless night loud with 
rain! I longed for you! I longed for you so! 
My longing was as the whisper of all the ages 
of creation—without beginning—and without 
end. Please—please—forgive me—why . . . . ” 

“Ahmed!” she interrupted him. “Thief of 
Bagdad! Thief indeed, you are! But”—her 
voice dropped—“it has not decreased my love 
for you, nor changed it. Here”—she slipped 
the ring on his finger—“come back to me— 
some day! I shall be waiting for you until. . .” 

“Until 

“Until you have reclaimed the good that is 
in you—the brave—the splendid—the honest— 
the fine—the decent! I trust you utterly, 
dear . . . . ” 

And then, suddenly, she stopped, turned, 



104 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


listened, as from the distance came the clank of 
steel and hectic, staccato shouts: 

“The thief! The thief! Hunt him down!” 

“Quick!” she exclaimed. “Hide yourself!” 

But it was too late. Already soldiers came 
pouring into the pavilion. Ahmed defended 
himself, fighting bravely. His sword leaped to 
his hand like a sentient being, flashed free of 
the jeweled velvet scabbard, caught the hag¬ 
gard rays of the dying sun so that it glistened 
from point to pommel like a chain of diamonds. 
In and at them he went, with a stamping of 
feet, a harsh, guttural Arab war cry, his weapon 
dancing a saraband. But the odds were against 
him. A blow from a battle-axe against the hilt 
of his sword sent it spinning, disarming him. 
They pulled him down as hounds pull down a 
stag, and dragged him into the presence of the 
Caliph. 

“The truth!” demanded the latter. “Who 
are you?” 

“I am a thief!” replied Ahmed; and a smile 
curled his lips at the remembrance that Zobeid 
loved him, although he was what he was. 

“Dog!” the Caliph bellowed with rage; he 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 105 


struck Ahmed heavily across the mouth. “Son 
of a dog with a dog’s heart! Ah—let us see 
how you will like the song of the whip!” He 
turned to the servants. “Flog him!” 

A moment later Ahmed had been stripped 
and trussed. Swish, swish, swish!—went the 
rhinoceros-hide flails, whistling through the air 
with a triumphant, vindictive scream, curling 
about his back, cutting it into raw, bleeding 
pulp. And still he smiled; still he thought of 
Zobeid, of her words; “I love you! I shall wait 
for you! I trust you utterly!” until the Caliph, 
watching, seeing the smile on his face, broke 
into thin, cruel laughter. 

“Ah!” he said. “We shall yet change your 
impudent smile into a grimace of pain. Let us 
consider what tortures we may invent for you.” 
And when the Mongol Prince whispered into 
his ear, he laughed again. “You are right, 
Cham Sheng!” he continued. “A splendid, 
novel, gorgeous idea! Worthy of a Mongol 
indeed!” He turned to the slaves. “Throw 
this thief to the gorilla! Let us see of what he 
can rob the ape, or if belike the gorilla will be 
the better thief—plucking out our clever 


106 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


thief’s eyes and tongue—tearing him limb from 
limb!” 

And they dragged him from the hall toward 
the underground cave where the huge brute was 
kept during the day. 

Zemzem had overheard. She ran to Zobeid 
and brought her word of it. 

The latter had been in the depts of grief and 
despair. Now, typically, she dried her tears. 
For, although soft, emotional, thoroughly fem¬ 
inine, given to dreams, she emerged from her 
dreams to be frankly practical when faced by a 
hard emergency. So it was today. She must 
save her lover. She knew that force was out of 
the question, and that it would be impossible to 
argue and plead with her father. Remained 
one weapon: bribery. She took from about her 
neck a string of fifty priceless, evenly matched 
black pearls; tore it apart; and gave the dark- 
shimmering heap to Zemzem. 

“A pearl to every soldier of the guard!” she 
said. “Have them set Ahmed in safety through 
the secret wall panel into the street!” 

Zemzem hurried off. The soldiers of the 
guard obeyed readily and gladly. Slaves them- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 107 


selves, there was in their heart no rancor or 
hate, in fact rather a certain admiration, for 
the Thief of Bagdad. Too, here was treasure; 
a priceless pearl for each of them; and no risk 
of discovery. For how would anybody ever 
know of it? They would not tell; the Princess 
would not tell; Ahmed would not tell; and the 
gorilla was unable to tell! So, swiftly, secretly, 
they hastened Ahmed by a back path into a 
small, walled garden heavy with the acrid scent 
of marigold and the pungent, cloying sweetness 
of red jasmine, thence by an underground pas¬ 
sage that ran for nearly a mile and through a 
grass-covered, intricate trap door into an 
empty, deserted street, with a kindly: 

“May Allah protect you, O Thief of Bag¬ 
dad!” 

And there he sat, alone with the pain in his 
body, the pain in his soul, until the sun died in 
a sickly haze of coppery brown and the moon 
boomed up in the West, stabbed on the outer 
horns of the world, dispassionate, calm, indif¬ 
ferent to the heart of man. 

There he sat the night through, until the 
wind drove the dusk toward the East and the 


108 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


sky flushed with the jade-green of young morn¬ 
ing; until, with the sun rising higher and 
higher, there echoed from the palace a great 
blaring of trumpets and beating of drums and, 
not long afterwards Bird-of-Evil, who had 
escaped with the help of one of the soldiers, 
joined his friend and told him what had hap¬ 
pened. 

It appeared that, after the thief’s exposure, 
the Caliph had gone to his daughter and had 
bid her choose another husband. Stoutly Zo- 
beid had maintained that, happen what may, 
she loved the Thief of Bagdad, until her father, 
at the end of his patience, had said that he him¬ 
self would choose her husband from among the 
three Princes and had left her in a towering 
rage. Then a realization of her helplessness 
had come to Zoheid. She turned to her slaves, 
Zemzem and Therrya, who were in the room. 

“What shall I do?” she had asked. 

Again Therrya, the fortune-teller, had 
spread the heap of Meccan sand. Again the 
golden grains had gradually formed the hazy 
outlines of a rose. 

“Heaven-Born!” she had exclaimed. “Be- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 109 


hold! It is an assured thing. He who first 
touched the rose tree—he will be your hus¬ 
band!” 

“But—what can I do?” 

“You must fight for time!” 

So Zobeid had gone to the Caliph, had 
salaamed, had kissed his hand, had asked for 
forgiveness. 

“Father mine,” she had implored, “I do not 
know my own mind.” 

“Very well. I shall choose for you.” 

“No, no! Leave the decision to Kismet, to 
Fate!” 

“How, daughter?” 

“Bid the three Princes go away in search of 
rare treasure. Bid them return here at the end 
of the seventh moon. I shall then wed the one 
who brings me the greatest rarity. For he 
shall thus have proved himself most worthy of 
my love!” 

The Caliph had approved of his daughter’s 
suggestion; so had the three Princes; and even 
now—amidst the blaring of trumpets the beat¬ 
ing of kettle drums, and the fluttering of ban- 


110 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ners, they were leaving Bagdad, agreeing to re¬ 
turn at the end of the seventh moon. 

The Prince of India, riding in the golden 
howdah atop his elephant, smiled thinly. He 
was sure of the quest, sure of the outcome. The 
gods, his ancestors, would help him. 

Smiled, too, reclining in his litter, the 
Prince of Persia, fully as self-sufficient as the 
former. His wealth was untold. The greatest 
rarity in the world, Zobeid wanted ? Very well. 
He would find it. He would buy it for her, if 
it cost him the revenues of a thousand cities. 

Smiled, finally, sitting in his palanquin, the 
Prince of the Mongols. But for better, sounder* 
reasons than the other two he spoke to Wong 
K’ai: 

“Many are the traders and merchants and 
cameleers, who, every day, pass from my 
country into the land of the Arabs. Many will 
come during the next seven months. You will 
remain behind, here in Bagdad, to supervise 
them, to train them, to give them the signal if 
the time should come. For the traders who 
will come here during the next seven months, 
will be the pick of my warriors in disguise. The 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 111 


rarest thing in the world? Aye—I shall search 
for it! But, should I fail, I shall have yet a 
rarer thing: force! We shall conquer Bagdad 
regardless of its stout walls! We shall conquer 
it from the inside—when those peaceful Mon¬ 
gol traders exchange their silken robes for 
chain armor, their account books for buffalo- 
hide shields, and their pens and ink for lances 
and scimitars!” 

So the three Princes left Bagdad, while Bird- 
of-Evil whispered advice into Ahmed’s ear: 

“Look! Behind you is the secret panel. It 
helped you to get out. Doubtless it will help 
you to get in again. Nor—” he laughed— 
“will you need the Egyptian drug this time. 
The Princess loves you. She will go with you 
of her own free will.” 

“I am not worthy of her!” 

“Fool! Fool! Fool!” 

But Ahmed did not reply. Pie walked away, 
hurt in body and heart; and it is related in the 
ancient Arabic chronicles that, as he walked, 
a strange thing happened to him. 

“For,” says the ancient chronicle, “as the 
Thief of Bagdad turned into the Square of the 


112 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


One-Eyed Jew, it seemed to him, suddenly, as 
if a mysterious force came out of the nowhere, 
with a great whirring of wings, like the wings 
of his soul, his own soul, tortured, suffering, 
trying to escape the cage of the dust-created 
flesh. Steadily this force was urging him on, 
eompellingly, irresistibly, until—he did not 
know how and why—he found himself in the 
very mosque where, only a few days earlier, 
he had defied Allah and the Prophet Moham¬ 
med—on Him the Peace! And there the priest 
—may he walk with the blessed in the Seventh 
Hall of Paradise!—came up to him and bade 
him welcome in the name of the Prophet Mo¬ 
hammed—on Him the Peace!” 

The priest smiled when he recognized Ahmed. 

“You look troubled and grief-stricken,” he 
said gently. “Tell me, little brother. Perhaps 
I can help you.” 

“I am searching.” 

“Searching for what?” 

“For the unobtainable!” 

“There is nothing unobtainable,” said the 
Holy Man, “if your will be strong and your 
heart pure.” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 113 


“My will is strong,” replied the Thief of 
Bagdad, “but my heart is not pure.” 

“Then you must make it pure.” 

“How?” 

“Through the dust and the grime of suffer¬ 
ing and patience! Through the clear water of 
courage—of honesty—of decent endeavor—of 
faith in the Lord God!” 

“Teach me, O Holy Man!” 

“I shall, little brother!” 

And then, when Ahmed had told him the full 
tale of his sins, of his love, and of his despair, 
the priest took him to the Eastern gate of Bag¬ 
dad and gave to him a sword. 

“Go out on pilgrimage!” he said. “Your 
way to happiness will be long and weary. 
Patience you will need, and courage. Aye— 
patience and courage and the greatest faith in 
the world! Step out upon your path of thorns. 
At the end of the path—if your heart be 
cleansed of all sin—you will find a silver chest. 
This chest contains the greatest magic in the 
world. Go forth. Find the chest. Earn it. 
And return!” 

Ahmed kissed the priest’s hand. Then he 


114 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


took the ring which Zobeid had given to him 
and, drawing his sword, cut it in two. He 
placed one half on his finger, giving the other 
half to the priest. 

“Send this to her,” he said, “who already has 
my heart!” 

And so the Thief of Bagdad left his native 
town in search of his own soul. 



CHAPTER V 













CHAPTER V 


Ten miles to the East of Bagdad was the 
oasis of Terek el Bey. Greenly and peacefully, 
in the shadow of an immense, dun-colored lime¬ 
stone rock that seemed as if tossed there by a 
Titan’s playful fist, it squatted athwart the yel¬ 
low swash of the desert, stippled with the bayt 
es-shaar, the nomads’ felt tents black as the 
tents of Kedar in Hebrew Scripture. Here, 
with a stirrup cup and courtly words, the three 
Princes said farewell to each other—“we shall 
meet again at the end of the seventh moon”— 
for here the overland road to Bagdad split in 
three directions. 

One branch stretched East, straight East 
as flies the crow, crossing the great desert of 
Arabistan where the sands spawned their 
golden, cosmic, eternal centuries, and debouch¬ 
ing at the Cape of the Ras Mussendom that 
dropped with a rocky avalanche into the Per¬ 
sian Gulf where swift, square-rigged Arab sail- 
117 


118 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ing craft connected with Karachi, the Indian 
port. Thence a narrow trail, coiling like a 
shimmering silver snake over the ochre loam 
of the plains, led to Puri, the ancient capital 
founded by the gods themselves, and there the 
Prince of India intended taking counsel with 
the Swami Haridat Rashiq Lall, a learned 
Brahmin priest who was reputed to be in the 
odor of sanctity, a man of wisdom as wide as 
the shoreless seas. 

To quote a contemporary and doubtless 
truthful Hindu account: 

“The Swami was the father and mother of all 
knowledge. He wrote a learned tome anent 
the metaphysical differences between Substance 
and Unsubstance when his mother’s milk was 
not yet dry on his lips; on his fourth birthday 
he surprised and delighted his parents, and 
made other Brahmin boys’ parents envious, by 
memorizing and reciting the ninety-nine thou¬ 
sand verses of the Holy Vedas; he was familiar 
with the innermost secrets of eternal and infinite 
principles before he was eleven; when he was 
twelve he had written a critical study about 
the leading Hindu critics’ commentaries that 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 119 


dealt with Buddhist critics of the Shintoist criti¬ 
cal school; and he was considered the equal of 
the eleven hundred and seventeen minor gods 
before his mustache had begun to sprout.” 

Small wonder, therefore, that the Prince of 
India, riding his elephant to the East, smiled 
ironically as he thought how foolish the other 
two Princes were in endeavoring to compete 
with him in the quest for the greatest rarity on 
earth. 

The Prince of Persia took the second road, 
North over the snow-topped fastness of the 
Caucasus, then Southeast into the foot hills of 
Luristan where, beneath a tropical sun, the 
rocks seemed like glowing heaps of topaz and 
the scorched, flayed ridges, like carved masses 
of amethyst and ruddy quartz. Here the road 
dipped East, skirting the yellow fields and erim- 
son rose gardens of Kerman, to find its goal in 
Shiraz. At the latter place, in the far-flung 
Bazar of the Badakshani Merchants, every¬ 
thing precious and incredible that had ever come 
out of Asia as well as out of the lands of the 
European barbarians, was for sale. There a 
display of phoenix eggs, dragon teeth, and 


120 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


green diamonds from the Mountains of the 
Moon was an every-day occurrence that did not 
create even the slightest ripple of excitement. 

There, too, lived a certain Hakim Ali who 
was reputed to he the son of a union between 
the Archangel Ishrafil and a female desert vam¬ 
pire from Kurdistan. None knew how old he 
was: some said a thousand years, while more 
conservative people put his age at seven centur¬ 
ies. But all the world agreed that, though pre¬ 
ferring the garb and mode of life of a beggar, 
nothing under the sun was hidden from his eyes. 

Him the Prince of Persia had decided to 
consult; and, like his brother of India, he 
laughed maliciously as his litter bore him on 
his way. 

The Prince of the Mongols took the third 
road, the long, the cold, the hard road to the 
Northeast; travelling by swift relays of Bac- 
trian camels and shaggy Tartar ponies and 
white reindeer through the bleak, inhospitable 
steppes of Turkestan and Siberia; slashing 
rapidly through the frozen, black slush of Outer 
Mongolia; mounting and descending the hard- 
baked, shimmering snow of the Salt Range, 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 121 


that seemed hooded and grim like the gigantic 
eyebrows of some ancient heathen god; finally 
after a short halt at his capital of Kahn Baligh 
—the Tartar town which the Chinese call Pekin 
—wending on toward the far, mysterious Island 
of Wak that, separated from the Manchurian 
coast by a narrow channel, glimmered like a 
jewel of smoky purple and dull orange. 

He, too, was sure of his quest. For in an 
underground temple at Wak lived a Tunguz 
medicineman who had discovered—others said, 
had made with his own hands—a certain dread 
fruit which held in its evil heart instantaneous 
power over life and death . . without doubt 
a treasure so extraordinary and exotic that, 
compared to it, anything the other two Princes 
might find, would seem like a child’s brittle, 
useless toy. 

So the Prince of the Mongols smiled—as 
smiled the other two. But there was a better, 
sounder reason for his sardonic amusement. 
For he was an intensely practical man. He 
believed in making assurance doubly sure; even 
trebly sure. Thus, not satisfied with the treas¬ 
ure of the Island of Wak, nor yet satisfied with 


122 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


his plan of sending Mongol warriors disguised 
as peaceful traders to Bagdad in case anything 
should go wrong, he furthermore gave orders 
to his spies to follow and shadow the Princes 
of India and Persia and to report to him by 
swift messengers whatever they might find out. 

He wasted never a thought on the self-styled 
Prince of the Isles, the Thief of Bagdad. 

He imagined that by this time the latter had 
been thoroughly killed, thoroughly eaten, and 
thoroughly digested by the Caliph’s gorilla. 
And even had he known of Ahmed’s escape, he 
would not have worried: Ahmed, the lonely 
man, the thief, the outcast, with every man’s 
hand against his—with nothing but his sword, 
his small bag of provisions and, perhaps a faint 
hope—out on the bitter, thorny path—out to 
conquer, first himself, and then the greatest 
treasure on earth! 

Hard, hard was the beginning of Ahmed’s 
road. 

For it led him through the Valley of the 
Seven Temptations, where not even his sword 
was of help to him, and where he had no weapon 
nor shield except his own heart. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 123 


This valley was inhabited by the spirits of 
those who had died by giving way to one of the 
seven temptations, the seven deadly sins of man. 
These spirits crawled like worms along the 
ground or flew on black wings amongst the trees 
while skeletons, whose moldy, yellow bones were 
held together by bits of charred sinew, followed 
them as the murderer does his victim. The air 
was filled with their shrill and pitiful cries; and, 
occasionally, by a heartbreaking sob of relief 
when a spirit, his period of punishment over, 
was reincarnated by Allah into a new body, to 
return once more to earthly existance, to be 
faced once more by the seven temptations, per¬ 
haps to win out on his next road through life. 
Here, too, malignant dwarfs and witches with 
shriveled, bluish-phosphorescent skin and ruby- 
red eyes leaped about like hobgoblins, yelling at 
the heavens with the hooting of the owl, the 
bark of the hyena, and the jackal’s long, wild, 
lonely cry. For they were the spirits who have 
been twice born, had twice succumbed to temp¬ 
tation, and were doomed to live in the valley 
for the length of three hundred and seven eter¬ 
nities. 


124 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


There were, furthermore, many other dread¬ 
ful sights and sounds which the ancient Arab 
chronicler refuses to describe . . . “for 
fear,” he says, “that I might cause the reader’s 
heart to stop from beating with the black horror 
of it!” 

But Ahmed passed unharmed through the 
Valley of the Seven Temptations, with the help 
of prayer and faith: faith in Allah, the One, 
that was slowly growing in his inmost soul. 
And by the time he had left the valley and was 
climbing up toward the Hill of Eternal Fire, 
the Hill of Pride, he had sloughed his old law¬ 
less passions as snakes slough their skin in 
spring and had begun to admit that there was 
a Master greater than his own will, finer and 
nobler than his own desires. 

Thus, when he reached the outer, red-glow¬ 
ing wall of the Hill of Eternal Fire, the Hill 
of Pride, he gave thanks to the Creator, cry¬ 
ing: “Allahu akbar —God is great!” and: 
“Siibhan *llah —I sing the praises of God!”; 
and he gave a solemn vow that, should he pass 
unscathed through the perils of his journey, he 
w r ould hereafter obey the five cardinal ordi- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 125 


nances of the Prophet Mohammed’s teaching: 
he would repeat his daily prayers to Allah; he 
would observe the month of Ramazzan with 
scrupulous care, fasting during thirty days 
from sunrise to sunset; he would give the pre¬ 
scribed alms to the poor; he would live a clean 
life; and he would make the Haj , the pilgrim¬ 
age to Mecca. 

He smiled, just a little sheepishly, a little 
self-consciously, as he remembered his former 
boast that Allah was only a myth and that a 
man who was worth his salt took what he wished 
without asking leave from anyone. 

“Allahu akbar —God is great!” he repeated, 
as the Hill of Eternal Fire, the Hill of Pride, 
rose before him like a gigantic flame. 

By this time the Prince of Persia was draw¬ 
ing near to Shiraz, leaning back, as was his 
habit, on the heaped, silken pillows of his lit¬ 
ter; helping himself liberally to sweetmeats and 
sugared pistache nuts; listening drowsily to a 
little slave girl curled at his feet, who was croon¬ 
ing him to sleep with a lilting Afghan love 
song: 


126 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Since my sight fell on those dark eyes of thine, 

Never can I forget those lovely eyes of thine. 

Of the hawk’s are they? The peacock’s or the 
falcon’s? 

Or of the soft-eyed antelope? The glances of 
thine eyes ? 

As the lambs crouch hidden in the pasture. 

From the shade of thy tresses look those gentle 
eyes of thine. 

As the armed trooper stands, his lance in hand 
beside him, 

Thus stand the long lashes round those warring 
eyes of thine. 

As one who has drunk wine, thus intoxicated is 
my being 

Whether they be Priests or Dervishes or even 
Hermits, 

On each one’s heart they feed, those cruel 
eyes of thine. 

Yet whatever thou wouldst gaze on, look well 
upon me, 

O Fathma! while there is power of seeing in 
thine eyes . . . .” 

So the litter—with the Prince by this time 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 127 


sound asleep and snoring loudly through his 
nose, like a guttural and raucous accompani¬ 
ment to the little slave girl’s dulcet piping— 
reached the Bazar of the Badakshani Mer¬ 
chants; and the Prince kept on sleeping and 
snoring although there was a great cheering 
and huzzaing, and although the stalwart 
soldiers who preceded the litter made the air 
ring with defiant and rude shouts as they 
cleared the way with: 

“O thy right!”—yelling as they brought 
down their long, brass-tipped staves with full 
force. “O thy left! O thy face! O thy ear! 
O thy heel!”—suiting the swing of their sticks 
to the part of Asian anatomy which they were 
striking—“O thy back, thy back, thy back! 
Give way, ignoble and unmentionable ones! 
Give way, sellers of unclean filth! Give way, 
leprous sons of burnt fathers!” 

But, in spite of the soldiers’ abuse, the mer¬ 
chants, knowing of old the Prince to be an ex¬ 
travagant spender, crowded about the litter, 
pushing and jostling each other, heaping their 
treasures of jewels and brocades and embroid¬ 
eries and perfume and costly rarities about the 


128 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


snoring potentate’s small, fat feet, vociferously 
clamoring that he should look, touch, buy: 

“Behold, Protector of the Pitiful! Only a 
thousand Persian gold pieces for this priceless 
emerald! See! It is flawless and cut in the 
form of a Kashmiri parrot! Only a thousand 
gold pieces—and I am losing money on the 
transaction—may I be father to my sons!” 

“Behold, O Heaven-Born! A pink turma- 
line from Tartary as big as my head! Its 
touch is guaranteed to cure fever, dyspepsia, 
whitlows, and the pain of sorrowing hearts! 
Call me a Jew, a Christian, a bath servant, a 
cut-off one, if I lie!” 

“Look, look, look, O Great and Exquisite 
Moon! Look, O Holder of the Scales of Be¬ 
nevolence with the Strength of Thy Hands! 
This brocade—look, look—it was woven by the 
daughter of the King of Germany as a ran¬ 
som for her father, captured in battle! The 
diamonds with which it is encrusted—look, look 
—they are the tears, crystalized by the will of 
Allah, which she shed while weaving the ex¬ 
traordinary fabric!” 

“Look!” “Buy!” “Look!” “Buy!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 129 


The pulling, bartering symphony rose ever 
more shrilly until the Prince, at last awakened 
by the tumult, sat up, opened his eyes, rubbed 
them, and dismissed the merchants with a 
promise to look at their wares some other time. 
Today he could not. For he was awaiting 
Hakim Ali, that descendant of the Archangel 
Ishrafil and the Kurdish vampire, who had been 
notified of the Prince’s coming by a swift mes¬ 
senger galloping ahead of the caravan. 

Hakim Ali, in spite of his—to say the least 
—peculiar, mixed ancestry, was a good, one 
hundred per cent Persian patriot and eager to 
do all in his unhallowed power so as to help 
his sovereign lord. He came now, crippled, 
naked but for a beggar’s loin cloth, and car¬ 
ried in the arms of two slaves. His was not 
a very prepossessing exterior. His eyes were 
yellow flecked with green, his hair was red, 
and his face brown—unpleasantly so, resem¬ 
bling in color, texture and outlines an over- 
dried cocoanut. His body was emaciated and 
ribbed like a bamboo frame, and from his 
mother, the Kurdish vampire, he had inherited 
birds’ claws that took the place of hands and 


130 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


feet. From her, too, he had inherited the neat, 
furry little tail, very much like a goat’s, that he 
whisked from side to side to drive away the 
flies and mosquitoes and that he used to ges¬ 
ture with as mere humans use their hands. 

And violently he gestured with his tail when 
the Prince told him about Zobeid and his over¬ 
whelming love for her. 

“Bah!” exclaimed Hakim Ali. “Your words 
are as wind in my ears! Personally I disap¬ 
prove of women. The Lord God created them 
only so as to prevent life from being as charm¬ 
ing and agreeable as it might otherwise be.” 

“You dislike women?” 

“I do not care for them. These seven cen¬ 
turies or so have I been a confirmed bache¬ 
lor.” 

“But”—objected the Prince—“I love her.” 

“Did not the Prophet Mohammed—on Him 
the salute!—say that Allah has not left any 
calamity more hurtful to man than woman?” 
came the other’s pious quotation. 

“Doubtless the Prophet—on Him the bless¬ 
ings!—was right. But still—I love Zobeid. 
For the sake of one of her precious eyelashes 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 131 


would I commit the many sins. And so I want 
her to be my wife.” 

“By my tail! Almost a woman’s reason!” 
exclaimed Hakim Ali impatiently, scratching 
his nose with his left hind claw—“that is to 
say, no reason at all!” 

But the Prince of India was stubborn in his 
resolve. He implored the other to help him 
find the greatest treasure, the most exotic rar¬ 
ity on earth, adding: “There is no price I 
would not be willing to pay for it, including 
the revenues of all my kingdom, and all the 
jewels of my ancient dynasty!” 

Hakim Ali laughed. 

“My lord,” he replied, “you will not have to 
pay one millionth part of it.” 

With his tail he pointed at a bazar booth 
where a mass of Persian, Bokharan, and Turk¬ 
ish rugs was heaped up for sale, precious, sil¬ 
ken masterpieces of the weaver’s art, gay with 
furnace-crimson and cherry-red and lilac subtle 
as a spirit flame, with serpent-green and em¬ 
erald-green, with amber like the bloom of 
grapes and the dead-gold of autumn leaves, 
with black and silver as a fervid summer night 


132 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


that is flashed by lightnings and with delicate 
yellow as the seedling of a pea. 

“Rugs? Bah!” objected the Prince. “All 
the world has rugs.” 

Again Hakim Ali laughed. He pointed to 
the corner where, carelessly, negligently 
thrown, was a threadbare, worn, drab-colored 
square of carpet with a fair fringe all round. 

“Look at it!” he said. 

“What about it?” 

“Buy it. Ten silver pieces will be enough.” 

“Why should I buy it?” 

“Because”—Hakim Ali lowered his voice— 
“there is nothing rarer in the Seven Worlds of 
Allah’s Creation.” 

And then, when the transaction had been 
finished through the Prince’s majordomo who, 
incidentally, bargained the rug dealer down to 
six pieces of silver and deducted twenty-five 
per cent from this sum as his personal com¬ 
mission, Hakim Ali whispered into the Prince’s 
ear the secret of the rug: 

“Not one of these foolish Badakshani mer¬ 
chants knows its value nor its hidden mystery. 
You see”—talking in a flat, sibilant purr—“it 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 133 


is the magic carpet of Isfahan—the flying car¬ 
pet of Isfahan!” 

“What?” interrupted the Prince with rising 
excitement. “You don’t mean to say that it is 
really . . ” 

“Yes! I mean it! There is no doubt of it! 
It is the magic carpet! Stand on it! Sit on 
it! Squat on it! Then tell the rug where you 
wish to go! And—swish, swish, swish! like 
the shooting of dragon-flies—it will rise into 
the air, it will cut through the sky, high up, 
above the roofs, above the clouds, and carry 
you wherever you command. Hal—ho — heel" 
he laughed vindictively, triumphantly—“for 
years it has been in this bazar—for all the 
world’s fools to spit on and wipe their feet on. 
And none knew! None knew!” 

“Thank you, thank you!” exclaimed the 
Prince, while the servants stowed away the 
magic carpet in the litter. “Name your re¬ 
ward!” 

“Don’t thank me—yet!” sneered Hakim Ali. 
“For, doubtless, you will win Zobeid with this 
rug.” 

“That is just why I am thanking you!” 


134 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 

“That is just why you should not thank me! 
Woman? By Allah! Has it not been said 
that woman is an inflicter of grief in love as 
well as in hate? Has it not been said: ‘Among 
the philosophers, the Chinese; among the 
beasts, the fox; among the birds, the jackdaw; 
among men, the barber; and in all the world 
woman—is the most crafty?’ Has it not been 
said, furthermore: ‘The beauty of the lark is 
in its song, good manners are the beauty of an 
ugly man, forgiveness the beauty of the de¬ 
votee, and the beauty of woman is virtue—but 
where shall we find a virtuous woman?’ Wah!” 
he rumbled on. “I have always considered the 
female of the species a sort of walking, two- 
legged pest, whose mission on earth, like the 
mission of mosquitoes”—here he flicked a mos¬ 
quito away with his tail—“is only to prevent 
our being too happy! No, no, my lord! Do 
not thank me!” 

And the Hakim, still laughing disagreeably, 
was carried away by his slaves, while the Prince 
of Persia, reclining in his litter, left Shiraz. 

He was serene and happy. The end of the 
first moon—and already he had acquired the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 135 


treasure wherewith to win the Princess’ hand. 
Why—he thought—he was in no hurry to re¬ 
turn to Bagdad; would he able to stop for a 
couple of months at Kerman. For this was the 
season when the purple plums and purple 
melons of Kerman were ripe! Ah!—he 
smacked his fat lips—a lamb, stuffed with nuts 
and raisins and roasted whole; a heaped plat¬ 
ter of plums; a bottle of golden Khaketian 
wine; and a melon—perhaps two melons—as 
dessert! Life was worth the living indeed! 

He fell asleep, while the little slave girl, 
curled at his feet, crooned a lilting, lisping 
Afghan love song, and while the Mongol 
Prince’s spy, who had watched and listened, 
rode swiftly toward the North to make report 
to his master. 

On he rode; over the ragged, bitter crests of 
the mountains, across sudden valleys, flanking 
the dwarf dikes of the poppy fields, on through 
the huge, grey flat of the upland desert that 
was seamed with wide sheets of tufaceous gyp¬ 
sum shining like mirrors; on, ever hurrying, 
grudging the hours of rest spent in camp and 


136 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


towns by the way; galloping his shaggy pony 
no matter how rough and steep the road; 
knowing well that the Mongol Prince, while 
punishing cruelly those who disobeyed, re¬ 
warded liberally those who obeyed and ren¬ 
dered fair service. 

And it was an ironic twisting of Fate that, 
without knowing it, the spy passed within a 
short distance of the Hill of Eternal Fire, the 
Hill of Pride, where the Thief of Bagdad was 
facing his second ordeal. 

This Hill—wrongly so called—was an enor¬ 
mous defile, cleft between towering black walls, 
and in the centre of it a great, seething, rock- 
lined caldron of flames, perhaps three miles 
across, fed by the pride of unjust men and 
fallen Angels. 

Hard was the road up the defile to the step¬ 
ping of Ahmed’s feet. Stronger and stronger, 
as he toiled upwards, his lungs heating like a 
hammer, the heat from the caldron,, as he ap¬ 
proached it, sucking through the defile as 
through a chimney and scorching his face, grew 
the temptation to return, to give up this pil¬ 
grimage. Was Zobeid, his love for her and her 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 137 


love for him, worth this terrible suffering of his 
flesh and his soul ? Was anything under heaven 
worth it? 

“Return, O fool! Return!” whispered his 
brain. “Go back to Bagdad! There is a life 
of ease and plenty waiting for you in bazar 
and marketplace! Why strive for the unob¬ 
tainable?” 

But while his brain reasoned, his soul prayed; 
mechanically at first; then ardently, fervently; 
until—dimly, gradually—he began to compre¬ 
hend that Allah was something far greater, 
more immeasurable, more vast, both more mer¬ 
ciless and more kindly, than hitherto he had 
been able to grasp. Something there was in 
Allah’s will, he knew, he felt, which gave unity 
and coherence and reason to all, even to suffer¬ 
ings and martyrdom, and he might some day 
lay hold of this something, the Infinite, through 
his faith, and thus vaguely, but truly and in¬ 
deed, see the shining face of God. 

Reasoned his brain: 

“Return, O fool!” 

Said his soul: 

“Keep on your road! For everything is of 


138 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


God—you yourself, your weakness, your 
strength, your love for Zobeid, your faith, 
your doubts!” 

So with the understanding of God’s eternal 
omnipotence, humility came to the Thief of 
Bagdad while step by step as he neared the 
seething caldron and while his flesh suffered 
ever more intensely with the enormous, cruel, 
splintering heat, the temptation to return, to 
give up his pilgrimage, vanished and thinned 
and disappeared completely; was only a drab 
memory when at last he reached the caldron— 
and looked down—and shuddered. 

Around the rim of the caldron the flames 
licked up like speckled, blotched, luminous 
reptiles; like cobras with dripping lips, stained 
crimson and scarlet by the blood of sacrifice; 
coiling about the souls of the unjust men and 
the fallen Angels with the destroying heat of 
their flaming bodies, cleansing the sin-scabbed 
spirits as in a crucible; while smoke, blue, black, 
grey—the sins of these souls released from the 
pure, spiritual matter—rolled on and up in 
gloomy, grotesque, sinister garlands. Farther 
toward the centre of the caldron the flames 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 139 


peaked a thousand feet high in a supreme tra¬ 
vail and martyrdom, melting the rocks here 
and there, bursting them asunder, so that they 
tumbled down, loud-booming, like the black 
crack of doom. And still the blaze soared up, 
spread up, twirled up, forked up; red-hearted, 
blue-tipped, yellow-frayed; and ever and anon, 
when the black-winged Angel of Death tossed 
another soul of pride and injustice into the 
caldron, there would come an immense shriek¬ 
ing and yelling, and the flames would shoot 
higher—ever higher. 

Ahmed looked. He stared. How might he 
cross? There seemed no way, except to swim 
across these flames as across a river. And 
again temptation touched him. He would re¬ 
turn. He was too weak to face this ordeal. 

Curiously, with the thought, with the very 
realization of his weakness, something strength¬ 
ened his resolve and, by the same token, steeled 
his will power. For, as he admitted his weak¬ 
ness, his pride died; as his pride died, his humil¬ 
ity increased; as his humility increased, his be¬ 
lief in Allah’s mercy grew; and as his belief 
grew, he saw dimly at first, then more and more 


140 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


clearly, rocks rising out of the ocean of fire— 
rocks that seemed untouched by the seething, 
hissing whirlpool of flame—“the Rocks of 
Faith,” the ancient Arab chronicle calls them. 
The first rock was only a couple of feet from 
the rim. Ahmed measured the distance with 
his eyes. Yes, he said to himself, by vaulting 
high and straight he might reach it. Again he 
stared into the flaming sea. Beyond the first, 
he saw a second rock like a small, flat-topped 
island; beyond the second, a third; a fourth; a 
fifth; a whole chain of them; and at the oppo¬ 
site side of the caldron he saw, shimmering 
like a holy silver grail through the crimson 
curtain of fire, a limpid stream of water that 
rippled from a basalt wall—“the Stream of 
God’s Charity,” according to the ancient manu¬ 
script that has brought down to us the tale of 
the Thief of Bagdad. 

He longed for the coolness of this stream. 
The longing grew. He made up his mind. 
He would risk the journey across the precari¬ 
ous bridge of rocks. He whispered a short, 
fervent prayer: 

“El-hamdoo s lillahi Rub el-alamin —unto 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 141 


God be all glory, the Lord of the Worlds!” 

Then he leaped away from the rim, with all 
his lithe, clean young strength; leaped high 
and straight, with never the shadow of fear in 
his heart. He reached the first rock; trem¬ 
bled a little, then balanced himself, his agile, 
bare toes gripping the slippery stones. 

Again he mumbled a prayer: 

“Yah abeyd Ullah, la ilah ill 9 Ullah, waked 
VUah —verily I declare that there is no God 
but the Lord God—one the Lord God is!” 

Again he leaped while the tossing flames be¬ 
neath him licked up with their cruel red tongues 
—missing him—just missing him. So he 
reached the third rock, the fourth, the fifth, 
and with every keen, lean, straight jump his 
confidence became stronger until at last he 
found himself at the opposite side of the cal¬ 
dron, where he bathed his face and hands and 
soul in the cool, healing water from “the 
Stream of God’s Charity.” 

Yet, grateful, humbled, having shed his 
pride as if it were a soiled turban cloth, he 
was still the old Ahmed, merry and gay, with 
ever a joke on his lips, a jest ever in his heart. 


142 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and looking back at the seething, hissing mael¬ 
strom of fire, he said: 

“If the Prince of Persia had to vault across 
this caldron—by my teeth and my honor!—his 
fat body would have melted and would have 
reeked to heaven like a mountain of grease 
sizzling in a gigantic skillet. If the Prince of 
the Mongols had attempted it —hay ah !—his 
proud and haughty soul would have fed these 
flames so that they would have flared up, high 
up to the Seventh Hall of the Blessed where 
the Prophet Mohammed—on Him the salute! 
—sits on his seven-stepped throne of glory. 
And I doubt that the Indian Prince’s divine 
ancestors would have helped him much. De¬ 
cidedly, it pays to be a thief—at least a re¬ 
formed thief!” 

Laughing gayly, he left the defile of the Hill 
of Eternal Fire, the Hill of Pride, and walked 
along steadily until at the beginning of the 
third moon he fell in with a wise hermit—a 
hermit, indeed, so wise that, alone in that part 
of the world, perhaps in all Asia, he knew all 
about the defects of a horse, the reasoning of 
a cat, the thundering of clouds, a woman’s 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 143 


deeds, and a man’s future fortunes. He told 
Ahmed that he was on the right road, but that 
he would first have to cross the Valley of the 
Monsters and the Garden of the Enchanted 
Trees. 

“As to the latter,” said the hermit, “it is 
your wit and cleverness that will help you; and, 
as to the former, your strength, your pluck, 
your sword.” 

Ahmed smiled. 

“It is a good thing,” he replied, “that I lost 
my pride in crossing the Hill of Eternal Fire. 
Otherwise I might say that, as to wit and clev¬ 
erness, the bazars have sharpened my brain to 
needle point, while as to strength and pluck— 
by Allah and by Allah—modesty stuffs my 
mouth from telling you the truth!” 

Then he was serious once more. For it 
seemed to him as though, from very far away, 
spanning the distance, he could hear the voice 
of Zobeid urging him on, telling him: 

“I love you, Ahmed! I trust you—utterly! 
I shall wait for you!” 

The voice came to him with an all-pervading 
sense of sweetness and peace. It came with a 


144 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


wafting of jasmine and marigold perfume, a 
soft tinkling of far-away silver bells, and the 
muffled sob of a one-stringed guitar. And, in¬ 
deed, at that very moment, up in the tower 
room of the harem, Zobeid was thinking of the 
Thief of Bagdad. She looked from the win¬ 
dow, out toward the East, where, under the 
sweep of the twilight, the bunched, squat mass 
of Bagdad was reddening to russet, then chill¬ 
ing to a flat, silvery grey. 

“Send back to me my lover, O Allah!” the 
prayer rose to her lips. “Dear Allah! send 
him back to me! For I love him—I love him 
so . . ” 



CHAPTER VI 





CHAPTER VI 


In describing the adventures of the Prince 
of India during his search for the greatest 
rarity on earth, we are confronted not by a 
lack but by a superabundance, a prolixity, an 
extraordinary embarrassment of too much ma¬ 
terial in which we have to separate the chaff 
from the wheat, and vice versa. For the con¬ 
temporary accounts by Hindu poets, theolo¬ 
gians, and historians, written in the most classic 
and most elegant Sanskrit, fill over seven thou¬ 
sand enormous tomes, twisted and baroque 
with Oriental parlance and imagery and illus¬ 
trated with countless charming miniatures. 
Therefore, having read and digested every last 
one of them, we have decided to give here only 
the gist of the shortest of these accounts, which 
begins, piously and properly: 

“Rung hao! Hail to the gods! Greetings, 
salutations, and genuflections to Surya, the 
Sun; Vayu, the Wind; Yama, the Judge of 
147 


v 


148 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Souls; Varuna, the Regent of Water; Prithwi, 
the Earth; Lakshmi, the Dispenser of Wealth! 

“Greetings to all the household gods! 

“Greetings, also, to Vishnua, Shiva, and 
Doorga! 

“Greetings, finally, to Brahm, greatest of 
gods! May His might be glorified and His 
word be exalted! For it was He who distin¬ 
guished man by the garment of intellect, who. 
adorned his exterior with splendid form and 
perfect figure, and who illuminated his interior 
with the light of knowledge. Man hath thus 
received the happy gift of being enabled, with 
clear view and penetrating reflection, to con¬ 
template the Wonders of Omnipotence and the 
mysteries of creation, and to know that the 
brocaded surface of Day, colored with brilliant 
and motley groupings, and the glorious curtain 
of Night, decorated with the light of the many 
stars, received not visible form without a wise 
Ordainer and a preventing Framer . . 

So the original Sanskrit text rambles on for 
about three hundred pages to come back to 
earth by describing the meeting at Puri, the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 149 


ancient capital of Hindustan, between the 
Prince of India and the learned Brahmin 
priest, the Sami Haridat Rashiq Lall. 

The latter, having listened to his sovereign 
lord’s request, immediately rolled up his 
tongue, separated his soul from his body, and 
went into a trance which lasted for seven days 
and seven nights. Then, returning to conscious¬ 
ness, he declared that he had considered the 
matter of the Prince’s marriage, and quoted 
the Shastras, the Hindu Scripture, at length: 

“ ‘She who is not descended from his pater¬ 
nal or maternal ancestors within the sixth de¬ 
gree is eligible by a man of high caste for nup¬ 
tials. In taking a wife let him studiously 
avoid the following families, be they ever so 
high in caste, or ever so rich in grain and cattle 
and gold: the family which has neglected pre¬ 
scribed religious duties; that which has pro¬ 
duced no male children; that which has thick 
hair on its body; that whose sons have blue 
eyes; and that which is given to vile lan¬ 
guage.’ ” 

The Swami slurred; stopped; then, smiling 
a little, went on: 


150 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Rajah! I have the very wife for you. She 
is very learned and of good family. She is of 
golden color, with a dear little nose like the 
flower of the sesamum. Her eyes are large, 
like the principal leaf of the lotus. Her lips 
are red, like the young leaves of the mango- 
tree ; her teeth are like pomegranate seeds; and 
her swaying walk is that of a drunken elephant. 
She is most fair amongst the fair. I repeat 
that she is of excellent family. She is, in fact, 
my daughter. Marry her, my lord, and he 
happy ever afterwards!” 

“A curse on your daughter and her father!” 
exclaimed the Prince impatiently. “I told you 
—did I not?—that I wish to marry Princess 
Zobeid!” 

“She is an Arab—a Moslem—a foreigner— 
a heathen—a cannibal of the holy cow!” 

“A cannibal, too, of my heart! She has de¬ 
voured it—by Shiva! I love her!” 

“The gods have ordered that . . 

“The gods may order you, hut not me , to do 
or let undone certain things,” haughtily inter¬ 
rupted the Prince. “I am their descendant. I 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 151 


am their equal.” And when the other con¬ 
tinued to argue and plead, he exclaimed: “Shut 
your lips lest your teeth catch cold! And now 
—tell me what I came here to consult you 
about. The greatest treasure on earth—where 
shall I find it?” 

Then, as Haridat Rashiq Lall still went on 
voicing his objections and quoting lengthy 
passages from Hindu Scripture in support of 
his arguments, at last the Prince lost his pa¬ 
tience and commanded his Rajput slaves to 
give the Holy Man a sound bastinado upon the 
soles of his saintly feet. They did so, trussing 
him up like a pig with his feet in the air, plying 
their bamboo staves with ardor and enthusi¬ 
asm, having never liked the priest who was 
given to nagging and preaching and sermon¬ 
izing and pointing out other people’s sins and 
errors. After which, the soles of his feet cut 
to ribbons and hurting painfully, the latter 
was convinced that his imperial master meant 
what he said. So he rubbed ointment on his 
wounds; went into another trance which lasted 
for seventeen days and seventeen nights; 
awakened; painted a brand-new, crimson caste 


152 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


mark on his forehead; and announced that, 
though he still disapproved of the Rajah’s de¬ 
cision, he had succeeded in discovering what 
was wanted of him: 

“The rarest and most wondrous thing on 
earth! The goddess Doorga’s left eye wherein 
one can see, as if graved there by a steel chisel, 
whatever is happening anywhere in the world!” 

“For instance,” asked the Prince, “could I 
read therein what Zobeid is doing at this very 
moment?” 

“Indeed, O Rajah!” 

“Very well. Where is this statue of Door- 
ga?” 

“Far, far in the north! A thousand miles 
from here. Beyond the Suleymani Range! In 
the land of the heathen Afghans! In a jungle 
a little to the west of the city of Kandahar!” 

Early the next morning the Prince of India 
went into the North, accompanied by a large 
retinue of soldiers and slaves and porters, not 
forgetting to take along seven Tamil sorcer¬ 
ers. For the Swami had warned him that he 
would have to cross a swamp inhabited by 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 153 


ghastly and repulsive supernatural beings. 

They climbed the Suleymani Range and, at 
the end of the second moon, came to the jungly 
swamp. It was guarded by a Yogi, the guar¬ 
dian of the swamp who, dressed in nothing but 
age-old dirt, squatted on a mound of earth, 
drumming upon a skull, and incessantly ex¬ 
claiming: 

“Ho, Hali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga!” as 
he prayed to the three dread incarnations of 
the goddess of destruction. 

But the Prince of India did not stop to argue 
with him. A word to his scarlet-robed execu¬ 
tioner—the swish of a two-handed sword—and 
the Yogi’s head rolled on the ground like an 
over-ripe pumpkin, while the Prince and his 
followers entered the dismal swamp. 

The Swami’s warning had been right. For 
it was inhabited by all the terrible creatures of 
the Hindu hell. There were here enormous 
goats with tiger claws and flat, opaque snake 
eyes, possessed by the souls of those who had 
slain Brahmins; things with the bodies of men 
and the faces of camels and monkeys and wart- 
hogs, inhabited by the souls of deniers of the 


154 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


deities; huge, hideous, crawling green worms, 
containing the souls of priests who had eaten 
meat or drunk fermented liquor; blood-sucking 
bats who in life had stolen the property of 
temples; restless ghosts of those who had mar¬ 
ried low-caste women; shades for whom the 
funeral rites had not been correctly performed; 
sobbing, wailing, moaning souls fresh from the 
tortures of Tamisra, the Hell of Outer Dark¬ 
ness, and the Usipatra Vana, or Sword-Leaved 
Forest. There were here corpses and skeletons 
animated by female fiends, Daginis and Yo- 
ginis and Shankinis, dancing about in fright¬ 
ful revelry, and a thousand other terrible 
sights. 

So the seven Tamil sorcerers had their work 
cut out for them. But, what with prayers and 
exorcisms and incantations, with the burning 
of secret incense and the mumbling of ancient 
spells and the beating of devil drums, they 
succeeded at last. The supernatural beings 
disappeared in a great, roaring, yellow wind; 
and the Prince and his retinue continued their 
journey until, finally, they reached the statue 
of Doorga, the goddess of destruction. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 155 


Standing alone, majestic and grim, in the 
heart of the festering, miasmic jungle, it was 
raised on a tall, square pedestal on which was 
painted a panorama of all Hindustan’s many 
motley myths and legends and faiths and super¬ 
stitions : from the Chhadanta Jataka, the birth 
story of the Six-Tusked Elephant, most beau¬ 
tiful of all Indian legends, to the ancient tale 
of Kaliya Damana, which tells how Krishna 
overcame the hydra Kaliya; from color-blazing 
designs picturing Rama, Shiva, and Lakshmi 
meditating in their forest cells, to a represen¬ 
tation of Bhagiratha imploring Shiva to per¬ 
mit the river Ganges to fall to the thirsty earth 
from his matted locks. 

The statue itself was immense, towering over 
two hundred feet into the air, and carved from 
a single block of shiny, black basalt: with thick, 
blood-red, sensuous lips that were curled in a 
cruel smile; around its neck a double girdle of 
human skulls, and skulls, too, hanging from 
its ears; in its whirling hair a cobra, a mermaid 
figure of the river Ganges, a human skeleton, 
and the crescent moon. It had six arms. One 
of them held a sword, the second the blood- 


156 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


dripping head of a bearded man, the third a 
drum, the fourth fire, while its other two hands 
were empty and raised to bless the worshipers. 
Before the statue’s feet lay the utensils of sac¬ 
rifice—dishes for the burnt offerings, lamps, 
jugs, incense, copper cups, gongs and conches. 

Thus, in its solitary jungle home, as all over 
India, in a hundred temples from the snows of 
the Himalayas to the moist reek of Cape Co¬ 
morin, towered Doorga, the Great Mother, the 
Emblem of Lust and Destruction—that un¬ 
speakable Representation of the Mysteries and 
Cruelties of Life! 

The Prince looked at the idol. He mur¬ 
mured a prayer: 

u O Six-Armed Reverence! O Mother of all 
the spirits—of Alays and Gumas, Baitals and 
Yakshas of dreadful forms! Bless me, O 
Doorga! O Smashana Kali!” 

Again he looked at the statue. Its right eye, 
carved from the basalt, was painted a bright 
yellow. But the left, distinct even from this 
distance, was an immense crystal which mir¬ 
rored the dance of the clouds. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 157 


The magic crystal! The magic globe! The 
greatest rarity in the world! The treasure with 
which to buy the Princess Zobeid and Bagdad! 

For a moment he was conscious of certain 
misgivings. Should he risk it? Should he mu¬ 
tilate Doorga, the Great Mother, the dread 
goddess of Destruction? Should he pluck out 
this wondrous eye of hers? 

Quickly he overcame this feeling of misgiv¬ 
ing. By cutting out her eye he would bring 
Bagdad and all Arabistan under his sway— 
under the sway, thus, of India’s gods—of Door¬ 
ga herself. Yes. Doorga would understand. 

Only, before sending up a man to cut out 
the eye, he decided to propitiate the goddess 
with proper worship. He spoke to his priests 
and sorcerers; and, shortly afterwards, the 
worship commenced according to the ancient 
rites, with a procession of Hindus advancing 
through the forest and jungle toward the idol, 
singing, playing on instruments, on esraj and 
sitar and tabla , carrying swinging lamps that 
stabbed points of yellow and gold through the 
greenish gloom of the jungle, others carrying 


158 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


wreaths of orchids and bowls filled with milk 
and fruit and sweetmeats. 

At the end of the procession came the Prince 
himself. He was flanked at the left by a tall, 
mitred high-priest in white robes, and at the 
right by another ministrant, swinging a flat in¬ 
cense burner on silver chains. 

Around and around he swung it, and there 
rose long, slow streamers of perfumed, many- 
colored smoke—wavering and glimmering like 
molten gold, blazing with all the deep, trans¬ 
lucent yellows of amber and topaz, flaming 
through a stark, crimson incandescence into a 
great, metallic blue, then trembling into jasper 
and opal flames, like a gigantic rainbow forged 
in the heat of a wondrous furnace. Up swirled 
the streams of smoke, tearing themselves into 
floating tatters of half-transparent veil, pour¬ 
ing through the jungle and clinging to the 
trees, the bushes, the statue of Doorga. 

Straight up to the idol moved the proces¬ 
sion, bowing with outstretched hands, deposit¬ 
ing their offerings at Doorga’s feet, and chant¬ 
ing their litanies—with a gathering, bloating 
volume of voices, gradually shaping the words 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 159 


until the full hymn, the full melody, the full 
meaning beat up like an ocean of eternity, the 
whole punctuated by the hollow, staccato 
thump of the drums: 

“Ho, Kali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga, 
Doorga, Doorga! Thou who holdest a sword 
in thy lotus-like hands—who art fearless—who 
art black as the clouds—whose form is terri¬ 
ble—who dwellest in burning ground . . 

The voices dropped to a flat humming and 
purring. Then a wail of drums and cymbals, a 
shrill piping of reed-flutes in ear-splitting 
waves of sound—and once more the chanting 
rose loudly, while the swinging incense-burner 
poured out a thick cloud of cloying, dead-sweet 
smoke, like an impalpable cloud of dread super¬ 
stitions—the soul of their ancient Hindu faith 
in scented, vapory form: 

. . nor this the weapons pierce; nor this 
does fire burn; nor this does water wet, nor the 
wind dry up—Doorga, Doorga! O harasser of 
Thy foes eternal—all-pervading and constant 
Thou! Changeless, yet ever changing; un¬ 
manifest, unrecognizable Thou, and unvary¬ 
ing . . ” 


160 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


The voices of the worshipers peaked to a 
hideous, insane, soul-freezing pitch. They 
burst forth in thick, palpable fervor: 

“Hail, Mother! Hail, goddess of a thou¬ 
sand names! For as a destructress Thou art 
Kali! As a reproducer Thou art symbolized 
by the Yoni! Thou art the Mother of the Uni¬ 
verse, in the holy reincarnation of Jagan- 
Matri! As Parvati, Thou dost protect the 
hillmen, and Thou art also Sati, Tara, and 
Bhaivana herself, the consort of Shiva! Ho, 
Kali! Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga! Help us 
cross the Vaitarami, the dread stream of death! 
Help us over the horrors of the outer darkness 
Tamisra, across the sword-leafed forest of 
Usipatra Vana!” 

Then the high-priest raised his hands to com¬ 
mand silence; and he broke into a chant, be¬ 
tween speaking and singing: 

“Hail, Mother! Hail, six-armed goddess of 
horrid form, around whose neck hangs a string 
of human skulls, a precious pendant! Hail, 
malign and blessed image of destructiveness! 
Listen Thou to my Mantra!” 

“Ho, Kali! Ho, Smashana Kali!”—the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 161 


worshipers prayed and chanted and groaned. 

Some were half mad with excitement, and 
every once in a while one of them would jump 
up with a throaty yell, swing into the open 
space in front of the pedestal with a whirling, 
gyrating motion, and dance before the jeering, 
black statue with horrible gestures—and over 
all the sullen, palsying din of the drums and 
cymbals and tomtoms—and the red, floating, 
swirling wreaths of incense smoke—until at 
last, through sheer, physical exhaustion of the 
worshipers, the ceremony came to an end. 

There was in the Prince’s entourage a young 
Brahmin from Madras, called Asoka Kumar 
Mitra. This youth was very learned and of 
excellent family. His was an absolute purity 
of living and thinking, so exemplary that he 
even refused to look at his own great-grand¬ 
mother, an ugly, shriveled old woman, unless 
her face was covered by a thick veil; his char¬ 
acter was irreproachable; his honor unstained; 
and his charity so great that he used for him¬ 
self only one hundredth part of his income and 
divided all the rest in equal proportions be- 


162 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


tween saintly beggars, one half to Bairagis or 
Vishnu’s mendicants, the other half to Sanyasis 
or ash-smeared worshipers of Shiva. Him the 
Prince of India commanded to climb the statue 
and remove the left eye from its stone socket. 

“For,” he added, “your hand is as pure as 
your heart. Your touch will be gentle to 
Doorga.” 

The youth trembled with fear. 

“Heaven-Born,” he replied, “I am afraid.” 

“Afraid? Of what, may I ask?” 

“To remove the eye—oh—it would be a ter¬ 
rible affront to the goddess!” 

“Is that all?” smiled the Prince carelessly. 
“Have no fear. Doorga is my cousin. I my¬ 
self absolve you of all sin.” 

But still Asoka Kumar Mitra hesitated, and 
the Prince was about to lose his temper—which 
had always been short—when the high-priest 
whispered a word in his ear: 

“You cannot do it, my lord.” 

“By Shiva!” exclaimed the Prince. “Was 
there ever a Rajah in all Hindustan as plagued 
with objecting, arguing, nagging, contradict- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 163 


ing, cursed fools as I am? Why can’t I do it?” 

“Because”—the high-priest pointed at the 
grim, fiendish statue—“Doorga is not yet ap¬ 
peased.” 

“We prayed to her. We worshiped her ac¬ 
cording to the proper rites.” 

“I know. But she demands a sacrifice.” 

“We offered milk and flowers and fruit and 
sweetmeats.” 

“This is the month of pilgrimages, Heaven- 
Born,” argued the high-priest. “This month 
Doorga demands a sacrifice of blood—to smell 
sweetly in her nostrils!” 

“Very well,” said the Prince. “I shall sac¬ 
rifice to her when I return to Puri. I shall give 
to her a holocaust of thirty white sheep, thirty 
black sheep, three virgins and seven Brahmin 
youths of excellent family. I give oath!” He 
bowed toward Doorga. “And now”—turning 
to Asoka Kumar Mitra—“up with you, my 
lad. And have no fear. No sin is yours. I 
absolve you!” 

It is a disputable point what caused the 
young Brahmin to obey. Perhaps he did so 


164 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


because he had faith in the Prince’s divine con¬ 
nections; perhaps, on the other hand, because 
just then the Prince was making a significant 
gesture in the direction of his red-robed execu¬ 
tioner. At all events, up he went; mounting 
the pedestal; escalading the idol’s huge feet; 
scrambling up to its left knee, whence, slowly, 
warily, precariously, he scaled the hip’s enorm¬ 
ous, curved circumference; reaching out and 
grasping one of the great arms and using it as 
if it were a ladder; attaining the hand which 
held the blood-dripping head of a bearded 
man; sitting astride its thumb for a few mo¬ 
ments to rest himself and regain his breath. 

Down below the Prince urged him on with 
hearty words; and so the youth vaulted in a 
keen leap toward the statue’s thick, sensuous 
lips; got there in safety; and at last pulled 
himself up to the left eye, standing on the 
stony rim of the socket. 

He took a sharp chisel from his waist shawl; 
worked assiduously for several minutes until 
he had removed the eye. And then—was it 
fear of the goddess’ revenge, or was it a plain 
case of dizziness?—suddenly he gave a cry of 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 165 


terror. His feet slipped. His knees gave. He 
lost his balance. He tried to steady himself; 
could not; and, the crystal hugged against his 
breast, fell down, through the air, in a fantas¬ 
tic curve, striking the ground, two hundred 
feet below, with a sickening thud and crash. 

There was complete silence. Silence of utter 
terror. The youth was dead. 

Then the high-priest broke into a loud chant 
of thanksgiving: 

“Ho, Devi! Ho, Doorga! Ho, Smashana 
Kali! Thou hast listened to my Mantra! Thou 
hast accepted the sacrifice! Blessed be Thy 
name, O Great Mother!” 

Quickly he bent over the dead. With agile, 
practiced fingers he opened a vein and drained 
a generous quantity of blood into a sacerdotal 
bowl. He poured it out at the feet of the idol 
while the worshipers prayed and chanted, and 
while the Prince picked up the crystal eye 
which had remained unbroken in spite of the 
fall. 

He held it high. 

He looked into its milky whiteness. The 
greatest rarity in the world, he thought trium- 


166 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


phantly, well worth the death of a thousand 
young Brahmins! The treasure by the strength 
of which Zobeid would be his! Then, at the 
thought of her, he spoke her name. He ad¬ 
dressed the crystal: 

“Tell me, O magic crystal, what Zobeid is 
doing at this moment!” 

At once the globe clouded, to become a mo¬ 
ment later like a vivid, colored miniature that 
showed Zobeid on the balcony of her room, 
staring with starry eyes into the distance—eyes 
that were full of longing and love and faith. 

“By Shiva!” thought the Rajah, who all his 
life had had an excellent conceit of himself. 
“The Crusher of Hearts is thinking of me!” 

It would have shocked him dreadfully had 
he been able to read the words which Zobeid’s 
lips were forming silently: 

“Ahmed! Ahmed! Soul of my soul! Oh— 
my Ahmed—how I wish that I could be with 
you—to help you—help you in your search!” 

And indeed right then the Thief of Bagdad 
was in dire need of help. 

For he was about to cross the Valley of the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 167 


Monsters, the Valley of Evil Thoughts, where 
all the envies and jealousies and bad wishes 
formed in the human brain since God created 
Adam out of clay mixed with water and Eve 
from a crooked rib of Adam’s body, lie in am¬ 
bush for the traveler—unless there be no ran¬ 
cor in his soul and no envy nor malevolence in 
his heart. 

In this valley dangers of all kinds were as 
thick as hair in the tail of the blue-faced Vind- 
hya monkey. Here were slippery rocks and 
timber falls and jagged precipices; impetuous 
torrents flashing down their beds of black 
stone; and no path except a fugitive track 
through the undergrowth, hardly discernible, 
wiped by the poisonous breath of the jungle 
into a dim, smelly mire which bubbled and 
sucked—seemed to reach out for those who 
dared tread its foul solitude. 

Ahmed gripped his sword and steeled his 
will. He walked on. 

Cable-like, spiky creepers dropped low from 
the trees and struck his face; they opened be¬ 
fore him with a dull, gurgling sound as he 
brushed them aside with fist or sword point; 


168 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


they closed behind him as if the jungle had 
stepped away for a second to let him through, 
leisurely, contemptuously, invincibly, to bar his 
way, should he attempt to return. 

Darkness came suddenly. It came with black 
thunder clouds and the fiery, crimson, forked 
tongues of lightning. All about him Ahmed 
could hear the night cries of wild animals; the 
trumpeting of gigantic elephants; the grisly 
laugh of the foul, spotted hyenas; the howling 
of tigers; the hissing of cobras; and the whim¬ 
pering of wild dogs coursing in packs on the 
tracks of their prey. 

Fear dropped on him like a sodden blanket. 
He thought of the Prince of India, the Prince 
of Persia, the Prince of the Mongols. Thought 
of them with envy in his heart and rancor in 
his soul. They were strong. They were 
powerful. They were rich. They had thou¬ 
sands and thousands of armed retainers and 
wise men to obey their every wish, while he was 
alone in all the world, with nobody to lend him 
a helping hand. 

“Allah!” he exclaimedt “How I envy 
them!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 169 


And, as his lips pronounced the words, all at 
once the darkness was cleft in two by an im¬ 
mense shaft of quivering, yellow light, and he 
saw, square in his path, a huge monster facing 
him. 

It towered above him like a mountain. Its 
shape was that of a dragon covered with green, 
steely scales, a swishing tail that wound up in 
a forest of lances, an enormous, cavernous 
mouth that was armed with a treble row of 
dagger-sharp teeth and dripping with blood 
and black venom, and eight legs with claws 
large enough to rip an elephant to pieces as if 
it were a mouse and to tear a banyan tree up 
by the roots as if it were a small weed. 

It saw Ahmed, and made for him with a 
great, clumsy leap, breathing a column of 
smoke and fire from its nostrils. 

The Thief of Bagdad was about to turn tail 
and run away. But he reconsidered. He had 
no chance of escape. The dragon would over¬ 
take him at a single leap; would swallow him 
at a single mouthful. 

All right—he said to himself—it was quite 


170 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


hopeless; but at least he would die fighting. 
So he lunged at the brute with the point of his 
sword; missed; leaped nimbly to one side to 
evade the monster’s claws; lunged again, missed 
again, again leaped to safety. 

“Hair he gave his guttural war cry. “Hair 
and gradually, as he fought, the envy and ran¬ 
cor in his heart began to pale, and there came 
to him a certain high, reckless, clanking cour¬ 
age—nor exactly a courage of despair. 

Up from the ground he vaulted with both 
feet, striking with all his strength. The dragon 
grunted, doubtless surprised that this small 
lump of humanity should dare resist him and 
give battle, and receded a step. 

Ahmed laughed. 

“Pig!” he shouted at the brute. “Wart! 
Jew! Christian! Unclean and ludicrous 
pimple! Come here and fight!” 

The envy in his heart paling more and more, 
he went to the attack, fighting after the time- 
honored manner of Arab sworders; bending al¬ 
most double; skipping in a lithe, rapid circle; 
executing various gambados and measured 
leaps; springing forward like a monkey and 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 171 


backward like a toad; beating with his sword 
upon the monster’s tough hide so that it rattled 
like a drum. 

“Hail Hail Hair 

Why—he thought—he was really thorough¬ 
ly enjoying himself! Bah!—with all their 
might and wealth the three Princes of Asia 
would never be able to fight as he was fight¬ 
ing. Envy them? By the Prophet—let them 
envy him! And, as his brain conceived and 
formed the thought, all at once his sword point 
found a soft spot between the monster’s green, 
steely scales. The point entered, twisted, tore, 
cut, ripped; and with a great, wailing roar, the 
dragon fell on its side, breathed one final col¬ 
umn of smoke and fire through its nostrils, and 
died. 

“By the Prophet—on Him the salute!” the 
Thief of Bagdad said to himself, not at all mod¬ 
estly. “Pluck does it every time!” 

He shook his right hand with his left, con¬ 
gratulating himself. He kicked the dead 
dragon contemptuously in the ribs, wiped his 
sword with a handful of grass, left the Valley 
of the Monsters, the Valley of Evil Thoughts, 


172 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and turning the corner, found himself at the 
very entrance of the Garden of the Enchanted 
Trees, the Garden of Wisdom and Wit. 



CHAPTER VII 




* H 













CHAPTER VII 


The garden was a sweet and charming spot. 

Here the dark-hued tamala trees, bearded to 
the waist with grey and greyish-blue moss, 
served as a foil for the crimson glory of the 
pippal and pepper trees, the elfin-green and 
emerald-green exuberance of the cinnamon 
palms, and the majestic, columnar aisles of the 
banyan figs. From trunk to trunk, like bridges 
for the tiny, chattering, rust-red monkeys to 
pass across, stretched cordages of tough- 
stemmed, waxen orchids; while the ground was 
a rich mosaic of scarlet asoka flowers, cliterias 
of palest pastel blue, daks orange-yellow as 
the harvest moon, madhavis as white as the 
snows of the Himalayas, purple star flowers, 
and perfumed cascades of red and white jas¬ 
mine. Farther on were trellised walks closely 
roofed with heliotrope creepers, the golden, 
heavy blooms of the mango trees, and enor- 
175 


176 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


mous, sweet-scented clusters of chambela blos¬ 
soms. 

There were few sounds. Only gently, soft¬ 
ly, the humming of the bees plying their task 
amidst the flowers; and from time to time the 
dulcet notes of a kokila bird or the sobbing, 
minor wail of a turtle-dove deeply hid in its 
leafy bower. 

Peace and happiness. 

Peace and happiness, too, in Ahmed’s heart 
as he walked through the garden, a song on 
his lips. 

And then, quite suddenly, without reason, 
he became conscious of a feeling, not exactly 
of terror, but of a vague uneasiness; and the 
very next second he perceived the cause of it. 
For it seemed to him that, as he walked, the 
garden was walking with him, each tree and 
flower and bush, each orchid-laden creeper and 
tiniest blade of grass moving with him in a 
parallel line so that, for all his steady walking, 
he really did not move an inch. 

Was it his imagination? 

He decided to find out. He stopped dead 
in his tracks, and stared straight and hard at 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 177 


an enormous cluster of purple orchids spotted 
with tawny orange a few feet away from him, 
at the exact height of his eyes. Never for a 
second looking away, he walked on. Swiftly 
he walked, with a full, free swing of arms and 
hips. He ran, faster and faster and faster; 
and—yes, there was no doubt of it—the cluster 
of orchids remained where it was, in front of 
his eyes; the whole Enchanted Garden was 
keeping step with him. 

Again he stopped. He scratched his head, 
deliberating what he had better do. He re¬ 
peated the experiment with the same result. 
Once more the garden moved in a parallel line 
with him. 

“Allah!” he exclaimed. “What miracle be 
this?” 

The next moment, as if in answer, he heard 
mocking, ironic laughter issue .from a gnarled 
tamala tree. The tree laughed so heartily that 
its long beard of grey moss shook and its 
leaves trembled and danced, while all the other 
trees, all the flowers and bushes and blades of 
grass took up the laughter in a mad, whirling 
chorus. 


178 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


The merry sounds flowed on, pouring about 
Ahmed’s ears like the murmur of a stream 
through summer fields; and, as he shook his 
head, wondering what to do, the tamala tree 
which had laughed first spoke words—in ex¬ 
cellent, fluent Arabic with hardly a trace of 
foreign accent: 

“Ah—my Ahmed! Ah—my clever, clever 
Thief of Bagdad! let us see if your wisdom be 
as vast as ours and your wit as sharp as ours. 
Let us see if you will be able to solve the secret 
of the Enchanted Garden. How, my darling 
Ahmed, are you going to get out of here? Tell 
me! Tell me!” And again the tree laughed 
loudly and mockingly: “Ho—ho—ho!” 

“Ho—ho—ho!”*echoed the Enchanted Gar¬ 
den. 

Almost at once, quickly as the shadow of a 
leaf through summer dusk, an idea came to 
Ahmed. 

For let us recall that, born and bred in Bag¬ 
dad’s coiling streets, having made his living in 
bazar and marketplace as one of the foremost 
members of Bagdad’s Ancient and Honorable 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 179 


Guild of Thieves, he had learned there many 
subtle skills and twists of brain, had learned 
to he gliding of thought and tongue so as to 
find a shift with any man’s wiles. 

Years ago, when Bird-of-Evil had been the 
master thief and he a mere beginner, the other 
had taught him that in a tight corner silence 
was the sharpest weapon in the world, and that 
the listener has all the advantage over the 
talker. For the more the latter speaks, the 
more he becomes involved and tangled in his 
own web of words and the more anxious he 
grows to receive an answer, be it in agreement 
or in contradiction, from the other; until final¬ 
ly, should the listener in spite of all provoca¬ 
tion keep his tongue between his teeth, the 
talker is liable to lose his patience and to blurt 
out the very things he meant to conceal: valu¬ 
able secret or gossip or information. 

“A fool plays the flute before the buffalo,” 
Bird-of-Evil used to say. “But the buffalo 
continues to sit and ruminate.” 

Ahmed smiled as he decided to put his 
friend’s theory into practice. His first sur¬ 
prise over, he made believe that he was not at 


180 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


all aware of the tree’s laughter and mocking 
words. He yawned elaborately, stretched his 
arms as if he were tired with walking, and sat 
down in the shade of the loquacious tree, lean¬ 
ing against the trunk, while above him the tree 
continued to jabber and jeer and blabber like 
an old spinster cackling over the cook pots. 

“How are you going to get out of here?” de¬ 
manded the tree. 

No answer. Only a loud, rude yawn. 

“Ho—ho!” sneered the tree. “You may 
have to live forever in this garden until your 
beard sprouts, young man, and grows to be as 
long as this moss of mine!” 

Still no answer. Once more Ahmed yawned; 
blinked his eyes sleepily. 

“Thief!” exclaimed the tree. “Thief of 
Bagdad! Are you listening to me?” And, a 
little more impatiently: “Ahmed! Answer 
me! Are you listening?” And, still more im¬ 
patiently, with a slight growl of anger that 
caused his bark to wriggle like the hide of an 
old elephant: “Are you deaf? Answer me! 
I demand an answer!” 

Ahmed rubbed his eyes. Then he whistled 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 181 


to himself, softly, negligently, while the tree 
began to shake with rage, to stammer and stut¬ 
ter: 

“Behold me this fool! This idiot! This half¬ 
wit! A clever man, he calls himself! He 
boasts of it! And there he sits, silent, deaf, 
dumb! By Allah! A fool indeed! The sort 
of fool who fasts for a whole year—and then 
breaks his fast with an onion!” 

Still Ahmed kept as silent as the desert at 
noon, thinking to himself: “Expect good from 
the wicked; drain the swallow’s milk; pluck a 
hog’s wool; cause the sand to yield pomegran¬ 
ates ; fix a pump in the middle of the sea; put a 
male elephant in the nest of a humming-bird— 
then make the silent talk!” Until the tree, 
utterly exasperated, broke into a perfect storm 
of hysterical vituperations, cursing Ahmed’s 
ancestors for seven generations, cursing his 
problematical descendants, and winding up 
with: 

“An Arab he calls himself! But I think he 
lies! He cannot understand the Prophet’s 
language! He is a Jew! A Christian! Per¬ 
haps a Chinese! Or a woolly-haired, thin- 


182 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


shanked one from Africa! Deaf he is, and 
dumb! Why—even if I told him right now 
that, to get out of the Enchanted Garden, all 
he has to do is to pronounce three times the 
name of Allah and touch the little brown spot 
on my green trunk which conceals my heart 
with the second finger of his left hand—even 
then he would not understand—the fool—the 
idiot—the half-wit—the dunce—the dolt! 
Brothers and sisters!”—addressing the whole 
garden—“I am afraid that this Ahmed will 
have to stay here until he dies! And what a 
dreadful bore that will be for the lot of us!” 

“Don’t worry, O wise tree!” laughed Ahmed, 
jumping up. 

He looked for the brown spot on the trunk, 
found it, and touched it with the second finger 
of his left hand, while three times he pro¬ 
nounced the Creator’s name. Then, at once, the 
tree seemed to change its shape. The foliage 
dropped away as did the bark; and, instead of 
a tree stood a very old man, with long green, 
hair, a long green beard, green eyes, green skin. 
His very toe nails were green, and green was 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 183 


his voice—if voice can be said to have a color— 
as he said to Ahmed: 

“Fool you may he, but I am the greater fool. 
For you fooled me to the Sultan’s taste with 
your cursed silence. See”—he pointed at the 
Enchanted Garden and at an opening in its 
wall of trees beyond which was a sun-bathed 
clearing—“you have broken the spell. The 
road is yonder—the road down which you must 
step on your search for happiness!” 

“Shall I find the silver chest on this road, the 
magic chest, the greatest treasure on earth?” 

“I am not sure,” replied the tree-man. 
“You have done well so far. You have con¬ 
quered your pride, your envy, and your jeal¬ 
ousy. You have shown courage. You have 
accepted the blessed faith of the Prophet Mo¬ 
hammed—on Him the salute! And—” with a 
rather self-conscious laugh—“I personally can 
testify to your wisdom and wit. But I cannot 
tell you a thing about the silver chest. You 
will have to ask the Old Man of the Midnight 
Sea.” 

“Where does he live?” 

“Over there!” The other pointed vaguely 


184 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


to the East and, before Ahmed could ask 
another question, he changed back into a tree— 
a very silent tree this time, just as maddeningly 
silent as the Thief of Bagdad had been a few 
minutes before. 

So Ahmed went on his way, meeting with 
various, incredible adventures, until finally he 
met the Old Man of the Midnight Sea—“The 
Sea of Resignation to Fate,” as the ancient 
Arab chronicle interprets it. 

But speaking about Resignation to Fate, 
here was one virtue in which the Prince of Mon¬ 
gols was decidedly lacking. 

“I am my own Fate!” he used to exclaim; 
and, at least where the Princess Zobeid was 
concerned, he tried his best to make this boast 
come true. 

For by this time, traveling down the great 
Central Asian overland road in the guise of 
peaceful merchants, the pick of his Tartar, 
Manchu and Mongol fighting-men had entered 
Bagdad. They had taken up their living quar¬ 
ters in various caravanserais within easy reach 
of the Caliph’s palace in case of sudden mobili¬ 
zation and attack. During the day they squat- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 185 


ted in their bazar booths, exchanging the mel¬ 
low produce of the Far East for Arabistan’s 
silks and scents and forged steel; in the evening 
they met in a deserted cemetery outside of 
Bagdad’s walls, where Wong K’ai, the Mongol 
Prince’s confidential adviser who had remained 
behind, supervised their drill by their red-faced, 
silver-capped war captains. 

Too, the spies who had watched the Prince 
of Persia and the Prince of India had made 
report to their master who was now on his way 
to the mysterious and most extraordinary Isl¬ 
and of Wak, so called for a reason lost in the 
mists of antiquity—a reason to which even that 
grandiose and ponderous Mandarin classic, 
“The Book of the Yellow Emperor,” gives not 
the slightest clue. 

The Prince and his retinue took ship from 
the Manchurian coast. Came two days’ pitch¬ 
ing and rolling and, if the truth be told, sea¬ 
sickness, as the ship bored through the turbu¬ 
lent grey-green channel. Then one morning 
the sun rose in the East behind lowering clouds 
that were like mountains of gold-glowing lava. 
There was a gossamer fog which lifted sud- 


186 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


denly, and minute by minute the Island of Wak 
peaked more sharply into the focus. Nearer 
and nearer it came until the Prince of the Mon¬ 
gols, seated on top deck, could see all the de¬ 
tails. 

Seen from the distance, the place looked like 
some delicate and exquisite Chinese painting 
drawn and brushed by a master-craftsman of 
the Ming dynasty. There were charming pa¬ 
godas, tinkling with silver and porcelain bells; 
quivering bamboos; towering pine trees; waters 
eddying round a tangle of tall reeds; narrow 
rivers spanned by audaciously curved bridges. 
There were vivid bits of life: a peasant tilling 
his small patch of soil; a maiden sitting in a 
garden and weaving brocade at the loom; a 
scholar in front of his house, pouring over a 
learned scroll; an old man bearing a great 
bundle of fire wood; a fisherman rocking in his 
skiff—and, hovering over all, the serenity of 
quiet, intense, never tiring labor which is the 
message and the blessing of the Chinese. 

For Wak had been colonized by the Chinese. 
After the manner of their race, not through the 
sword but through work and industry, they had 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 187 


vanquished the original inhabitants: Tunguz 
tribesmen. The latter had died. Today there 
was only one of them left, Yuqluq, the medi¬ 
cineman to whom the Prince had sent word of 
his coming and who even now was climbing up 
the ship’s ladder. 

The Prince gave a little exclamation of dis¬ 
gust when he saw the medicine-man. For 
Yuqluq looked like a savage. He was tall and 
thin and dark. His hair, dyed red with henna, 
had been carefully trained in the shape of an 
immense helmet, and was ornamented with 
antelope horns. From his shoulders floated a 
magnificent cape of hawks’ feathers. He wore 
many-coiled brass-wire anklets which reached 
from his feet to his knees, and broad brass 
bracelets on both his forearms. His naked body 
was smeared with a bizarre design of ochre and 
crimson clay, while his face was tattooed to 
resemble a devil mask. Innumerable necklaces 
of beads were strung around his throat. From 
his girdle hung a large collection of witch 
charms, which flittered and rattled with every 
gesture and movement; and, dangling from 
a tall stick in his right hand, was something 


188 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


which resembled a dried cocoanut, but which on 
closer inspection turned out to be a human head, 
carefully smoke-cured, preserved, and shriv¬ 
eled, after the bones had been removed. 

An unsavory savage. But there was some¬ 
thing ominous, something wildly superb in the 
poise of his tall body. And a few moments 
later it appeared that, whatever the outer man, 
the inner man was both shrewd and fearless. 

“I heard word, Yuqluq,” said the Prince, 
“of a certain dread fruit which you possess—a 
fruit which holds instantaneous power over life 
and death.” 

“You have been truly told,” replied the medi¬ 
cine-man. 

“I want this fruit. Bring it.” 

“No!” 

“No . . . ?” The Prince raised an eyebrow. 
“You mean—you refuse to obey?” 

“Exactly!” Yuqluq crossed his arms over 
his broad chest. 

“You realize,” purred the Prince, “what re¬ 
fusal means?” 

“Death?” 

“Indeed, dog! But—ah”—with a thin, 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 189 


cruel smile—“slow death—death both lengthy 
and humorous! Humorous—I mean—from 
the onlooker’s point of view.” 

“I am not afraid of death. Nor am I afraid 
of tortures.” 

Both men were silent. They stared at each 
other, like two fencers. Finally the Prince in¬ 
clined his head. 

“You spoke the truth,” he said. “You are 
not afraid. To kill you would be useless. To 
torture you would be a waste of time. On the 
other hand, I want the magic fruit. I need it. 
I intend to have it. Tell me—how much do you 
want?” 

“The fruit is not for sale. Gold is of no value 
to me.” 

“I shall make you Duke of Wak.” 

“I do not care for titles. I”—Yuqluq drew 
himself proudly—“I am a medicine-man! 
What greater title is there?” 

“Mine own—possibly,” smiled the Prince. 

“Possibly!” came the arrogant rejoinder. 

The Prince laughed. 

“By the Buddha!” he said. “Hike you!” 

“And I like you, O Majesty!” 


190 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


And both men meant it. Both men laughed. 

“You might give me the fruit for love of 
me?” suggested the Mongol. 

“I do not love you enough—for that.” 

“Then—how can I pay you? What can I 
do for you? All men have their price. What 
is yours? What do you want?” 

“I want a wife,” came Yuqluq’s simple reply. 
“I want children—preferrably men-children. 
For I am the last of my race. With me—unless 
I have children—the Tunguz nation is fin¬ 
ished.” 

“Well—then—why don’t you marry?” 

“There is no Tunguz woman left in all the 
world.” 

“Marry a Chinese girl. Some of them are 
quite pretty—and all of them are obedient.” 

The medicine-man’s eyes flashed with hate. 

“These Chinese pigs look down on me,” he 
said. “They will not give me one of their 
women in marriage.” 

“I shall give orders. You will have a dozen 
Chinese wives if you like.” 

“Majesty,” replied Yuqluq, “it would do no 
good. You can order—yes—and they will obey. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 191 


But they will treat me as they have always done, 
and my wife, though of their own blood, will be 
an outcast amongst them.” 

“What can we dot” puzzled the Prince. 

“There is only one way.” 

“Name it!” 

“You are the Great Lord, the Great Dragon, 
the Supreme and Exquisite Majesty! If one 
of your own blood should become my wife, even 
the proudest of these Chinese pigs will kowtow 
to me and kiss my feet!” 

The Prince of the Mongols was silent. He 
was not angry at the other’s demands. Why— 
he smiled thinly—his father had been a much- 
married potentate. Twelve wives he had; seven¬ 
teen sons; and nine daughters. He himself— 
“for reasons of peace and political unity,” as 
he expressed it—had had his brothers beheaded 
when he had mounted the throne. But he had 
permitted his sisters to survive. For they were 
valuable pawns, articles of political trade, to be 
given as wives to chiefs and khans and minor 
princelings who desired the shining glory of 
imperial connection. And right here was a case 
in point! 


192 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


He turned to the medicine-man. 

“My youngest sister will make you an ex¬ 
cellent wife,” he said, “and you will doubtless 
make me an excellent brother-in-law—ah—a 
generous brother-in-law.” 

“Yes,” smiled Yuqluq. “Within the hour I 
will bring you the magic fruit of life and 
death.” 

“Harmonious and exquisite thanks!” 

They went ashore. 

A few miles inland were vast ruins where 
once, before the peaceful Chinese invasion, had 
stood the main temple—rather a cluster of tem¬ 
ples—of the Tunguz tribesmen. The ruins’ 
sinister reputation was such that the very 
Chinese, most practical and irreligious of men, 
refused to convert the acres into fields or build¬ 
ing-sites, and even to set foot on them. 

Here a curved stairway led into a valley. 

Following Yuqluq, the Prince of the Mon¬ 
gols picked his way carefully down; for there 
were large cracks and fissures between the mar¬ 
ble steps where fig and banyan seeds had found 
foothold amongst the slabs and, through the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 193 


centuries, had grown into huge, gnarled trees 
that heaved the stone work apart like so much 
sand a child piles up at play. 

Finally they arrived at the bottom of the 
valley. 

“Careful!” admonished Yuqluq. “Step 
gently. For the snake folk live here in peace.” 

The very next moment a low, thick, unmis¬ 
takable hiss came almost directly from beneath 
the Prince’s feet. At once his sword flashed 
free and descended with a steely swish. The 
head of the snake landed on a flat rock to the 
left with a dull thud. 

In the middle of the ruins there had once been 
an artificial lake dammed by stone embank¬ 
ments. But the dams had shivered and burst. 
The lake had risen. In the lower dip of the 
valley, scarlet-necked cranes had their homes 
in the half submerged arcades of the temples 
while blunt-nosed, pig-eyed crocodiles nuzzled 
the carved, broken pillars. 

They walked up a steep street where wild 
peacocks strutted proudly on the shivered house 
tops, spreading their tails under the golden 
splendor of the sun, and where countless blue 


194 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


pigeons with yellow topknots whirred and 
cooed. A little mongoose sat in the empty 
window of a deserted house, staring at them, 
and scratching its tiny, furry ears. 

It seemed that here, in the city of the dead 
Tunguz race, the world had stood still, that it 
was still standing still to hear the centuries 
race past on dusty, purposeless wings. 

On they walked, past deserted pavilions, 
past broken screens of fretted pink and green 
marble, half buried in the dirt, past brass-stud¬ 
ded gates whose hinges were eaten out with 
rust, past walls plumed and choked with grass, 
past little shrines which were gems of tracery 
and inlay, past masses of luxuriant plant life. 
For trees were everywhere. They grew be¬ 
tween the square, massive stones of the pave¬ 
ment, splitting them open like ripe cocoanuts. 

The medicine-man stopped in front of a large 
building springing out of the scarped rock. 

“We have arrived,” he said. “Here my an¬ 
cestors, before they were drowned in the swill 
of these Chinese pigs, prayed to their gods and 
. brewed their ancient craft. Here I, the last of 
my race, having inherited the craft of my ances- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 195 


tors, fashioned with my own hands and brain 
and soul the magic fruit which kills—and which 
grants life. No”—as the Mongol Prince was 
about to follow him across the threshold— 
“wait here. It is not safe inside.” 

He entered the temple and returned a few 
minutes later, carrying, tied to a long bamboo 
pole, a small object. 

“I give it to you. Majesty,” he said solemly. 
“May it mean death to your enemies! May it 
mean life again—renewed life springing from 
my loins—to my race when your sister, my 
future wife, shall bear me children! May they 
be men-children! May they be as many as there 
are hairs on my head!” 

The Prince of the Mongols took the pole 
and looked at the magic fruit. It was round, 
the size and shape of an apple, but made of a 
substance which he did not recognize, combin¬ 
ing the shimmer and glisten of polished gold, 
the soft texture of Mandarin velvet, and the 
icy chill of frozen snow. Its color was of 
mingled milk flames beneath the golden shim¬ 
mer, and it exhaled a strong, cloying scent. 

“How do I use it?” asked the Prince. 


196 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Then the medicine-man showed him that on 
one side of the apple was a tiny green point, 
like the point of a needle, and on the other side 
a similar point, but purple in color. 

“The touch of the green point, when it 
scratches the skin with a quick, criss-cross mo¬ 
tion, means death. The touch of the purple 
point, applied with the same motion, means 
life.” 

“Life”—demanded the Prince—“to whoever 
has died—and of whatever causes?” 

“No. It cannot restore life to those who 
have died by the sword, by wounds, or mutila¬ 
tions. But it does give life to those who have 
died of an ailment or of poison—any poison at 
all—or by the touch and scratch of the apple’s 
green point. Come!” laughed the medicine¬ 
man. “Let us put this darling little apple to 
the test!” 

They left the ruins and returned to the har¬ 
bor where, at the water’s edge, a Chinese was 
fishing. The man was intent upon his catch. 
He did not hear the footsteps behind him, nor 
the Prince’s whisper: 

“Here is your chance, Yuqluq!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 197 


The latter moved noiselessly toward the fish¬ 
erman; he reached out with the pole and, 
quickly, suddenly, touched and scratched the 
man’s naked shoulder with the green point of 
the magic fruit. 

The Chinese felt the scratch; imagined that 
a mosquito had bitten him; raised his hand to 
slap it away. Then, with his hand still in mid¬ 
air, he dropped as if struck by lightning. He 
lay there, stark, stiff, lifeless, while, gradually, 
as the Prince of the Mongols looked on, the 
body became bloated and turned a terrible, 
grey-green color, as though he had been killed 
by bubonic plague. 

“Ah”—smiled the Prince calmly—“one less 
Chinese in the world!” 

“Not yet!” laughed Yuqluq. 

Again he reached out with the pole; again 
scratched the fisherman’s shoulder, but this time 
with the purple point. And at once the grey- 
green color of the skin changed to a healthy, 
ruddy flush, the bloated body assumed its or¬ 
dinary proportions, and the man sat up nowise 
hurt, except for a great fear which had swept 


198 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


over his soul which caused him to run away as 
fast as his legs would carry him. 

“The greatest rarity in the world,” admitted 
the Prince of Mongols. “There is no doubt of 
it. More precious than the Prince of Persia’s 
flying carpet, more marvelous than the Indian’s 
crystal! And yet . . he slurred; paused, 

“And yet—what?” asked the medicine-man. 

“Will Zobeid think so?” 

“How can she help herself. Majesty?” 

There is beauty and romance in a rug that 
can cut through the air like a swallow; beauty 
and romance, too, in a crystal globe that mirrors 
the motley scenes of life. But is there beauty 
in this—a thing which gives life—yes—but 
which also gives death? Zobeid is a woman, 
soft-hearted. The thought of this grim thing 
might make her shudder. Perhaps she will 
fear and hate it—and fear and hate the giver.” 

“Decidedly,” came Yuqluq’s insolent answer. 
“It is lucky for you that I am going to be a 
member of your family. My brain will be of 
great help to you through the years to come. 
Majesty”—he lowered his voice —“use this 
magic apple!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 199 


“Use it? What do you mean?” 

“Send a confidental messenger to Bagdad as 
quickly as you can. Doubtless the Princess 
has amongst her servants one whose hand can 
be greased with gold?” 

“Yes. There is Fount-in-the-Forest, a Mon¬ 
gol slave girl who wishes me well.” 

“Good. Send her word to poison her mis¬ 
tress.” 

“Poison her?” Even the Prince’s tough 
Mongol hide squirmed at the suggestion. 
“What for? What is a dead woman to me?” 

Yuqluq smiled as he might at a babbling 
child. 

“Have her poisoned slowly,” he continued, 
“so that by the time you reach Bagdad she 
will be at every door of death. Then you, with 
the help of this magic apple, will bring her back 
to life. And there will be no argument as to 
which of the three of the Princes has brought 
back the greatest rarity. Life itself? Is there 
a finer gift on earth?” 

The Prince laughed. 

“Exquisite and harmonius thanks,” he re¬ 
plied. “I am glad indeed to have you for a 


200 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


brother-in-law. Your time and talents are 
wasted in the Island of Wak. As soon as I 
return from Bagdad with my bride, I shall ap¬ 
point you Chief Judge of the Imperial Circuit 
Court, Prime Minister, Moderator of the Bud¬ 
dhistic Faith, Supervisor of the Imperial 
Eunuchs, and a Knight Commander of the 
Order of the Five-Clawed Dragon.” 

That same afternoon a messenger was sent 
to Bagdad with the necessary instructions, 
while the Prince with the rest of his retinue 
returned to the mainland on the next day. 
They traveled quickly, by relays of horses and 
camels, toward the rendezvous with the other 
two Princes at Terek-el-Bey. For it was now 
drawing close to the end of the fifth moon, and 
there was not much time to spare. 



CHAPTER VIII 










CHARTER VIII 


Ahmed, too, was traveling swiftly; traveling 
East, always East, toward the rising sun of 
the world, the rising sun of his soul. The end 
of the fifth moon, he said to himself, and his 
goal was not yet in sight. His feet were step¬ 
ping down the hard, long road. His soul fol¬ 
lowed where his feet led. Deep streams of 
longing swept over him as with the force of a 
great wind. A journey of the body, this; but 
also a journey of the spirit. Adventures of the 
body; but also high, clanking adventures of 
the spirit. 

Farther and farther, each day, he drew away 
from the earth as he had known it heretofore; 
from life as he had lived it heretofore. Deeper 
and deeper he advanced into a gigantic, cosmic 
fairyland of which, gradually, he was begin¬ 
ning to feel the inner meaning of its symbolical 
expression and lessons and secrets. And yet, 
203 


204 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


leaving behind him all formerly known and 
realized experiences, entering upon this vast 
and unknown realm of the spirit, he was con¬ 
scious of a greater, subtler energy than he had 
ever known before; was commencing to see 
himself whole, measured against a more spa¬ 
cious scale of time—a scale of time where a 
month might be a fleeting, unimportant sec¬ 
ond, and a thousand years pass into the shadow 
like a single day. 

Yet, straight through, the thought of Zobeid 
never left him. It was in his brain like a 
strange, wild ecstasy that suffused him utterly 
—like the sweet and facile running of a brook 
over a mountainside. 

But—came the doubt—would he ever reach 
back to her? 

Five months were already gone, never to be 
regained, and he was beginning to be afraid of 
Fate, to doubt the outcome; was longing for 
resignation. 

Resignation to Fate! 

And he remembered what the tree in the 
Enchanted Garden had told him: that he 
would have to consult the Old Man of the Mid- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 205 


night Sea—the Sea of Resignation to Fate. 

So he traveled on. 

The valley below him was filled with mist. 
Above the mist, the sky vaulted tight and steel- 
blue, clear but for a cloud bank of a sickly, 
olive-green color that stretched across from 
North to South; stretched there like a solid ob¬ 
stacle, daring Ahmed to hurdle across and into 
the unknown. He half turned, looking over 
his shoulder. There, in back of him, the moun¬ 
tains rose and surged superbly. They sang 
there during the day, and at night whispered 
the praises of Allah to the hiving, green stars. 
On the other side of these mountains was life 
as he had lived it. He was going away from 
it now, into the unknown, the valley that, suf¬ 
fused with the sun’s red and gold flames, turned 
radiant through its mist of running tints. 

Something down there in that misty valley 
urged him on; it caught at his soul with a deep 
and puissant suction. He hurried—hurried 
toward the fringe of ultimate vision and un¬ 
derstanding. 

Gradually, as he descended the valley, the 
mist lifted. It vanished. He crossed a rhodo- 


206 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


dendron forest, purple with clustering blos¬ 
soms. The sun rays trembled in the leaves like 
wavering music in a wind of night. Very sud¬ 
denly, as he turned the corner of a gigantic 
rock, he saw the valley cleft in two by a shim¬ 
mering surface: a great lake offering its steam¬ 
ing expanse to the fiery face of the sun. There 
stretched miles upon miles of flat, monotonous 
beach with an occasional, grey, dry bush, like 
a Chinese water-color, silhouetting the far verge 
above the yellow surf. Farther to the West 
was a league-long tongue of sand whence slen¬ 
der, tufted jets of palms etched the vacant, 
azure spaces. There was not a sign of life; not 
even a zumming of sun-drunk insects, nor a 
circling and winging of birds; only, a few feet 
from shore, a very old, white-bearded man was 
rocking in a frail boat, rowing aimlessly with 
a single, oval-bladed oar, hardly moving. 

Lonely it seemed; terribly lonely; just as if 
the world had come to an end here, and there 
was no beyond, no future. The loneliness in¬ 
vaded Ahmed’s soul. He needed the consola¬ 
tion, the reassurance of the human voice. So 
he called out to the old man in the boat: 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 207 


“Hey, there! Hey, there!” 

No answer; and Ahmed raised his voice a 
shrill octave: 

“Hey, there! Say something, will you? 
Hey, there—you in the boat—old white-beard! 
Be you Moslem or unbeliever, man or ghost?” 

Still the man remained silent, kept on aim¬ 
lessly rowing. And Ahmed, prey to the huge 
loneliness, sat down near the shore, tired in 
body and soul. The sky above him blushed 
rose, trembled, flamed, sank to the booming of 
oncoming evening. A stray wind stirred and 
fluttered the watery vapors that sheeted the 
surface of the lake. 

“Oh, Allah!” prayed Ahmed. “Teach me 
resignation to Fate—Fate which is the breath 
of Thy Divine Will!” 

Sleep overcame him. 

When he awakened, it was night; night, com¬ 
plete, swathing, pitch-black, with only a single 
elfin wedge of moonlight that outlined sharply 
the old man who was still aimlessly rowing his 
frail boat—seemed not to have moved as much 
as an inch. Then, all at onoe, the conviction 


208 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


came to Ahmed that this was the Old Man of 
the Midnight Sea, and that this lake was none 
other than the Sea of Resignation to Fate. He 
rose. Again, cupping his mouth with his 
hands, he called out to the old man, this time 
with a peremptory spice in his voice of chal¬ 
lenge and impatience: 

“Are you the Old Man of the Midnight 
Sea?” 

Slowly the man in the boat turned his head. 

“You have guessed it!” the laconic, slightly 
ironic reply drifted across the water. 

“Come over here to me!” cried Ahmed. 

“Why should I?” 

“Because I need you.” 

“Many need me. All need me. Only four, 
since the beginning of Allah’s creation, were 
those who did not need me. One was Moses— 
on Him peace! The second was the Lord Bud¬ 
dha—on Him peace! The third was Jesus— 
on Him peace! And the fourth was the Proph¬ 
et Mohammed—on Him peace!”—and the Old 
Man turned his back on Ahmed and attended 
once more to his aimless rowing. 

“But”—cried Ahmed, more loudly—“I can- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 209 


not do without you! I am a poor, human soul 
in trouble!” 

“Why did you not say so the first time?” 
said the old man, rather ill-naturedly. “I am 
coming.” The boat moved, quickly made 
shore. “Come aboard, Thief of Bagdad!” he 
invited. 

“Oh-” asked Ahmed, surprised, as he 

stepped over the gunwale. “You know me?” 

“Of course I do. I know everybody. Am 
I not Kismet—Fate itself? Look out!”—as 
Ahmed shifted in his seat. “Have a care! Do 
not rock the boat! That has always been the 
chief trouble with you”—he grumbled—“all 
your life! You are forever rocking the boat. 
No, no!” as Ahmed moved again—“do keep 
quiet! I am having a hard enough time as it 
is, trying to hold this boat steady, with all those 
uncounted millions of foolish, querulous, pull¬ 
ing, whiniiig mortals always challenging Fate 
and holding back my boat with their eternal, 
silly complaints! All right”—as Ahmed sat 
still—“and now tell me: What exactly do you 
want?” 

“I want the magic silver chest.” 



210 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Help yourself to it. I am not keeping you 
from getting it, am I?” 

“Well—but where is it?” 

The Old Man of the Midnight Sea pointed 
at the black, coiling, swirling waters. “Down 
there!” he said. 

Ahmed leaned over the side of the boat and 
looked. 

“I cannot see a thing,” he replied. 

“Naturally not. The box is a hundred fath¬ 
oms deep—at the very bottom of the lake.” 

“Then—how can I get it?” 

“You will have to dive for it. You will have 
to jump into the Sea of Resignation to Fate.” 

Ahmed gave a little involuntary shudder; 
and the Old Man of the Midnight Sea took 
compassion on him. 

“Thief of Bagdad,” he said, “be not afraid. 
Everything, sooner or later, must go down into 
the waters of this lake. All men and women 
and children—even the unborn children. The 
moon goes down there every morning when it 
is waning, and the sun every night when it has 
set on earth. At the bottom of the lake you 
will find a cave—a cave made of the shimmer- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 211 


ing, opal tears of man’s grief, with windows 
made of the milk-white crystals and bright- 
green emeralds of man’s laughter, and a gleam¬ 
ing red door, like an immense ruby, made of 
the heart’s blood of all those who have loved 
and who have suffered and sacrificed greatly 
for the sake of their love. If your own love 
for Zobeid be great enough, your resignation 
to God’s will sincere enough, you will find this 
door. You will open it. And, beyond the 
threshold, you will see the magic silver box.” 

“What does the box contain?” demanded 
Ahmed. 

“A very precious treasure. The most pre¬ 
cious treasure in the world. Some men call it 
happiness. But emperors, fools, and wise men 
call it honor. It is the same thing. By the 
way,” he added as Ahmed stood up, about to 
dive into the lake—“the magic box is wrapped 
in the Cloak of Invisibility. If I were you I 
would bring the cloak along, too. It will come 
in handy in your future adventures.” 

“How do you know?” asked Ahmed. 

“Naturally I know, O fool!” chuckled the 


212 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


old man. “Did I not tell you that I am Kismet 
itself?” 

“I beg your pardon,” Ahmed murmured, 
crestfallen but polite; and, the next second, he 
curved into the water in an audacious leap. 

A splash—circles widening, breaking, dis¬ 
solving—smoothness and indifference again 
where the waters closed over him—and down 
there, as he bored his way head foremost 
through the hundred fathoms, a myriad flecks 
of glittering gold. 

He found the cave without much trouble. It 
shone like an immense jewel, opal and milk- 
white and emerald-green and ruby-red. He 
walked up to the door that was made of the 
heart’s blood of lovers who had suffered and 
sacrificed greatly because of their love; and his 
own love was like a sharp scimitar to the 
clutch of his hand, his resignation to the send¬ 
ings of Fate, growing, steadily growing, was 
like a stout buffalo-hide shield to his elbow. 

He laughed fearlessly, carelessly, when from 
rocks and clumps of coral at the bottom of the 
lake rose slimy, huge octopi that writhed about 
him with countless, sucking, pulpy tentacles. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 213 


The sword of his love cut their bloated bodies 
to pieces. The shield of his resignation guarded 
him against their attack. The strength of his 
love opened for him the blood-red door. The 
vision of his resignation pierced for him the 
cloak of invisibility in which the silver box was 
wrapped. 

He stuffed the cloak—it was as light as 
thistledown—into his waist shawl—and picked 
up the magic box. It was small and square. 
It did not look much like anything precious: 
just a plain silver box, oxidized by the water, 
and neither carved nor ornamented. 

He rose again through the hundred fath¬ 
oms, swimming upward steadily, with a full, 
keen stroke of his powerful shoulders, until he 
reached the surface of the lake. 

He looked about him. 

The Old Man of the Midnight Sea had dis¬ 
appeared. So had the boat. It was day. The 
sun shimmered down with a thousand splinter¬ 
ing, golden lances; and, as he swam ashore, he 
saw there a splendid, snow-white horse, a horse 
with two immense silver wings, that pawed the 


214 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ground impatiently with dainty feet and 
neighed when it saw Ahmed. 

Ahmed thought and acted at the same frac¬ 
tion of a second. He jumped on the horse’s 
back. 

“Off with you!” he cried. “Carry me West 
—across the Enchanted Garden, the Valley of 
the Monsters, the Hill of Eternal Fire, and the 
Valley of the Seven Temptations!” 

And the horse spread its silver wings and 
rose through the air—and we may mention here 
that the Arab chronicle from which this tale is 
taken refers to this horse as “the Winged 
Horse of Imagination.” 

“For,” says this chronicle, “what is love if not 
imagination? Do we not always imagine the 
loved one’s body and soul to be the most beau¬ 
tiful on earth? Such, doubtless, were Ahmed’s 
thoughts about Zobeid. Nor was he the only 
one. By the teeth of the Prophet—on Him the 
salute!—I myself, the scribe of this tale, met in 
Samarkand a woman, seventy years old, stupid, 
and who looked exactly like a well-fed pig. 
Yet I met a man in Samarkand who swore 
upon the Koran that this woman was so beau- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 215 


tiful that she caused the moon to blush with 
envy and jealousy. Love is indeed as blind as 
a puppy-dog!” 

But, if love is as blind as a puppy-dog, how 
blind then is conceit? Conceit of three Princes 
of Asia, meeting at the little oasis of Terek 
el-Bey, not far from Bagdad! 

Of the three, the Persian’s conceit was the 
most childish. He waddled about the oasis— 
as the Mongol Prince whispered to a confiden¬ 
tial Manchu clerk of his retinue—“looking for 
all the world exactly like a cross-breed between 
a hog and a peahen, having inherited the for¬ 
mer’s bloated, exaggerated, excessive, indecent 
paunch and the latter’s superb, if quaint, van¬ 
ity.” 

Indeed that morning, with the help of vari¬ 
ous servants, slaves, eunuchs, majordomos, 
coiffeurs, perfumers, dressers, barbers, mas¬ 
seurs, slipper-bearers, turban-twisters, valets, 
color experts, silk experts, velvet experts, skin 
experts, gland experts, manicurists, chiropo¬ 
dists, chiropractors, and jewelers, the obese 
little descendant of tough-thewed Iranian war- 


216 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


riors had adorned himself as became a Prince 
and a bridegroom. 

They had carefully shaved, painted, and 
powdered his cheeks and chin, except for cute 
little sidewhiskers that curled like question 
marks. They had trimmed, pointed, waxed, 
and scented his mustache. They had arched 
his eyebrows by plucking out the fine hairs 
around them with tweezers. They had dyed 
his hair a gorgeous indigo-blue, training two 
long, curly lovelocks to hang gracefully down 
either side of his face like a handsome frame 
to a handsome painting. They had enlarged 
the pupils of his eyes by using an infusion of 
belladonna. They had heightened the color of 
his lips with the help of betel-nut juice. They 
had whitened his plump neck by a mysterious 
Egyptian cosmetic worth its weight in gold. 
They had reddened the tips of his ears by 
squeezing them. They had caused his teeth to 
shine by rubbing copper powder into the roots. 
They had pointed and gilt his finger-nails and 
toe-nails. They had stained the palms of his 
hands and the soles of his feet a delightful and 
delicate rose with Turkish henna. They had 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 217 


spent seven hours in twisting about his bullet¬ 
shaped head a silken turban, blending peach- 
red with apricot-yellow, sky-blue with sea- 
green, the whole adorned with a cunning de¬ 
sign of bleeding, interlacing lovers’ hearts. 
They had robed his stout body with simple, al¬ 
most severe magnificence, in a robe of cloth- 
of-gold embroidered all over with white and 
yellow diamonds and opening over another 
robe of the same chaste magnificence, made of 
cloth-of-silver striped with purple and rose- 
madder and embroidered over the heart with a 
design of uncut emeralds that spelled out: “I 
love thee, Zobeid!” in both the Persian and the 
Arabic language. His jewels—finger-rings 
and toe-rings and ear-rings, pendants and 
necklaces and bracelets and turban aigrettes— 
were the pick of his treasury; and having never 
used a weapon in all his life except knife and 
fork, perhaps occasionally a toothpick, he had 
hung about his substantial person a number of 
wicked-looking weapons. 

For his chief barber had told him: 

“O Great Shah-in-Shah! O Lion of Allah! 
It has been my experience in life—a life,” he 


218 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


had smirked, “not untrodden by narrow, dainty, 
scented feet of many women—that the ladies 
admire a warrior, a hero, a clanking, rattling, 
bullying, swaggering fighting man!” 

He had added: 

CC Wah! The magic, flying carpet? You will 
hardly need it. Your face and figure alone— 
without mentioning your soul—are the great¬ 
est, rarest gift in the world! Just look into the 
mirror and convince yourself!” 

And the Persian had looked into the mirror 
—and had been convinced. 

The Indian Prince’s conceit, while matching 
the other’s, was more simple, more stolid and 
hard. He was cousin to all the gods. In him 
Ganesha, the god of wisdom, was reincarnate, 
as was Shridat, the god of fortune, and Maya, 
the goddess of illusion. 

Having been rather a gay blade during his 
bachelor years, fond of wine, woman, and song, 
he had given oath that morning that, as soon 
as he was married and returned from his honey¬ 
moon trip, he would be a model husband and 
model Rajah. 

“By Doorga, the Great Mother!” he had ex- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 219 


claimed. “By the Father of the Elephant’s 
Trunk! I give solemn oath that hereafter I 
shall turn over a new leaf! Every day of my 
life I shall perform the proper duties of a 
Rajah as ordered in the Vedas. I shall rise 
before daybreak and finish my ablutions! I 
shall worship the gods, and do obeisance to 
the Brahmins! I shall not permit my wife, the 
Princess Zobeid, to contradict me! I shall lis¬ 
ten to her advice, and then I shall go and do 
the opposite! I shall judge my people accord¬ 
ing to the Shastras and the Laws of Manu, 
keeping in subjection lust, anger, folly, avarice, 
drunkenness, and pride! I shall not yield to 
my desire for dancing, singing, playing on mu¬ 
sical instruments, gaming, and the chase! I 
shall refrain from sleep during daytime, from 
molesting men of worth and women of virtue 
and from useless traveling! I shall live such 
an exemplary life that future historians will 
refer to me as the Father of my country and 
the Grand Old Man of Hindustan! And in 
their books these historians shall devote a 
couple of pages, perhaps an appendix, to the 
sweetness and beauty of the Princess Zobeid, 


220 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


whom I graciously permitted to share my 
throne and my life! Ho, Doorga! Ho, Devi! 
Ho, Smashana Kali!” 

But it was the Mongol Prince’s conceit which 
was most justified by fact. 

For messengers, traveling post-haste from 
Bagdad, had brought him news that Fount-in- 
the-Forest had done her work well. She had 
succeeded in giving slow poison to her mis¬ 
tress. Even now the latter was on the thres¬ 
hold of death. 

The greatest physicians, sorcerers, faith 
healers, apothecaries, and leeches of Bagdad, 
Damascus, Constantinople, and Cairo had been 
summoned to her bedside. Moses Maimonides, 
the eminent Jewish philosopher and savant, 
had made the long journey East from the 
Moorish University of Cordova, where he lec¬ 
tured, to add his skill and sagacity; from Wit- 
telsbach, thanks to the good offices of the Em¬ 
peror of Germany, had come the famous Doc¬ 
tor Johannes Erasmus von Thunichtsgut, 
whose culture was so colossal that, besides be¬ 
ing the greatest German physician, he spoke 
seven dead languages and not a single living 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 221 


one; the Holy Father in Rome had despatched 
a saintly and sapient Franciscan monk, Padre 
Chrysostom, a wonderful exorcist who on three 
occasions had driven away the Devil by prayers 
and marvelous spells; and the Bourbons of 
France had sent M. le docteur Henri Toussaint 
Je-M’en-Moque, who hid his trenchant talents 
and penetrating perspicacity under mincing 
manners and a tremendous, white-powdered 
wig. 

All these wise men had come, accompanied 
by hundreds of tutors, teachers, mathematic¬ 
ians, schoolmasters, preceptors, dry-nurses, 
mentors, docents, and assistants. They had 
brought immense quantities of drugs, pills, in¬ 
struments, bandages, and scientific tomes. Ar¬ 
rived in Bagdad, they had examined Zobeid. 
Then, promptly, as is the habit of scientific 
gentlemen and mild, tolerant scholars the 
world over, they had disagreed with each other 
—some even with themselves—on every single, 
solitary point. They had argued and counter- 
argued, by inference and comparison, by revel¬ 
ation and tradition, by theories physical and 
metaphysical, analytical and synthetical, philo- 


222 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


sophical and biological, rational and inspira¬ 
tional. Some, being gnostics, had seen in every 
experiment a hundred things which they did 
not see. Others, being agnostics, had refused 
to see what they did see. They had wound up 
by calling each other bad names: 

“Fool!” 

“Liar!” 

“Charlatan!” 

“Unscientific jackass!” 

“Medicaster!” 

“Humbug!” 

“Quacksalver!” 

“Sophist!” 

“Dunce!” 

“Unprincipled scoundrel!” 

The insults had been as thick as pea-soup. 

The German doctor had pulled the French¬ 
man’s nose, and the latter had retaliated by 
drawing his rapier and painfully pinking the 
other in his generous stomach; and the Fran¬ 
ciscan Padre had cursed Moses Maimonides by 
candle and book, while the Jew had repaid the 
compliment with black and cryptic curses from 
the Talmud and the Kabala. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 223 


All this had not been of the slightest help to 
the poor little Princess; and even now the 
people in the Caliph’s palace were making 
ready for the last solemn rites—with the slave 
women wailing and beating their breasts; the 
death gongs sobbing like lost souls astray on 
the outer rim of Creation and the reed pipes 
shrieking their shrill/ dismal plaint; with 
white-robed, green-turbaned Moslem priests 
chanting the liturgy; and with the smoke from 
a hundred ceremonial fires mounting to the sky 
in thick streamers and hanging in ruddy, blood¬ 
shot clouds above the palace and telling to all 
Arabistan that one of the dynasty of Bagdad 
was returning to Allah. 

All this the Prince of the Mongols knew; and 
there was hidden laughter in the words with 
which he turned to the Prince of Persia: 

“And so, Great Shah-in-Shah, you imagine 
that this flying rug of yours is the greatest 
rarity on earth?” 

“Imagine ? By Allah and by Allah—I know 
it!” replied the other. He asked his servants 
to spread out the carpet. “Look! Consider 


224 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


well! To travel through the air at one’s will! 
Ah—to travel—travel . . .” He was waxing 
lyrical, as fat men will at the slightest provo¬ 
cation. “To travel! To see all the glorious, 
wondrous sights! Fragrant fields! Golden 
ribbons of rivers! Elegant pagodas! Moun¬ 
tains bee-black and lapis-blue! To travel—as 
I shall—side by side with the loved one, the 
darling, the apple of my eyes, my bride! Ah!” 
—addressing the Prince of India—“am I not 
right?” 

“Quite right—in a way,” admitted the In¬ 
dian, who, sure of his own success, could afford 
to be generous. “Traveling is a wonderful 
thing. My divine ancestors agree with you.” 
And, quoting from the words of Indr a, the god 
of air: 

“ Tndra is the friend of him who travels. 
Travel! 

“ Tor a traveler’s legs are like branches in 
flower, and he who travels grows like the tree 
and gathers his own fruit. All his wrongs van¬ 
ish, destroyed by the exertion on the roadside. 
Travel! 

“ ‘The fortune of a man who sits, sits also; 






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S .L:... "... ,■ 





*, 


-Once more her cool white fingers fell athwart his arm. 

- {“The Thief of Bagdad. 











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^ 1 ■ 























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It#! I- 

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- 











































































THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 225 


it rises when he rises; it sleeps when he sleeps; 
it moves well when he moves. Travel! 

“ ‘A man who sleeps is like the Iron Age. 
A man who awakes is like the Bronze Age. A 
man who rises is like the Silver Age. A man 
who travels is like the Golden Age. Travel! 

“ ‘Look at the happiness of the sun who, 
traveling, never tires. Indra is the friend of 
him who travels. Travel!’ ” 

“Yes,” continued the Indian. “To travel is 
delightful, and your flying rug is charming. 
Only”—he paused, smiled—“you were mis¬ 
taken about your travel companion, your 
bride.” 

“Mistaken?” echoed the Persian. 

“Yes. For—I suppose—you referred to 

Zobeid?” 

“Of course!” 

“I am sorry,” went on the Prince of India. 
“But she cannot go with you!” 

“And why not, pray?” 

“Because she is going with me!” 

“Oh,” demanded the Persian, sardonically, 
“is that so?” 

“It is!” The Hindu held up the magic crys- 


226 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


tal. “For this—this globe which I hold in my 
hand—is the greatest rarity on earth! Here 
you can read and see whatever, wherever any¬ 
thing is happening to anybody! A gift from 
Doorga herself—Doorga—that delightful, di¬ 
vine, six-armed relation of mine! Consider the 
marvel of it! A light from heaven! A fact of 
facile and fecund felicity! A thing of never- 
ending, ever-changing interest! A necessity 
for every married couple since, once and for 
all, it not only banishes every possibility of 
boredom, but permits the husband to see what 
his wife is doing when she is away—and vice 
versa!” He turned to the Mongol Prince. 
“Am I not right, O Great Dragon?” 

The Mongol laughed disagreeably; replied 
as disagreeably: 

“A wise Mandarin once remarked that to 
speak of honey will not make the mouth sweet. 
Personally I believe that you are both wrong. 
For I am sure that this little magic apple of 
mine will gain for me the hand of Zobeid if— 
ah—if she really means to keep her promise!” 

“Eh?” came the Persian’s surprised exclama¬ 
tion. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 227 


“You see,” continued the Mongol, “during 
these last seven moons I have often wondered 
if Zobeid was simply playing with us, sending 
us on impossible errands, since, after all, she 
is a woman, thus perverse by instinct—or if she 
intended keeping her pledge!” 

The Indian looked at the Persian, doubt 
sprouting in his brain as rice sprouts under the 
spring monsoon: 

“Does she mean to keep her pledge? I won¬ 
der!” 

“I wonder!” echoed the Persian. 

“Let us find out!” suggested the Mongol. 

“How?” 

“By consulting the magic crystal!” replied 
the Mongol. 

“Why not?” agreed the Prince of India. 

“Why not indeed?” echoed he of Persia and 
of the paunch. 













CHAPTER IX 









CHAPTER IX 


Closely they crowded about the magic globe, 
watching tensely, while the Prince of India im¬ 
plored Doorga to cause the blessed miracle to 
materialize. Long and ardent were his incan¬ 
tations to the goddess. Xot that it was really 
necessary. All he would have had to do was to 
say to the crystal: “Show me Zobeid!” and it 
would have obeyed immediately. But he saw 
here a good opportunity to impress the other 
two with the social importance of his divine 
relations. 

So he chanted: 

“Thee I implore, O Doorga, O Smashana 
Kali, O Mighty Ruler of the Lower and the 
Upper Firmament! Behold, I am blood of 
thy blood and bone of thy bone! Hari Bol! 
Hari Bol! Hari Bol! Thou art the Mother of 
All the World, of men and women and cows 
and Brahmins, also of grief and laughter, of 
231 


232 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


light and darkness and the Zodiacal Twins! 
Hari Bol! Hari Bol! Hari Bol! Grant me 
one boon! Show to me, thy blood relation, and 
to these two Princes by my side, though they 
are mere dust-created mortals, what Zobeid is 
doing at this very moment! Ho, Doorga! Ho, 
Devi!” 

At once the magic globe clouded. Breath¬ 
lessly they waited for a few moments while 
something—perhaps the very spirit of Doorga 
—came out of the nowhere and wiped over the 
crystal with a soft, gigantic hand, causing a 
great coiling of motley colors and interlacing 
of lines and curves to pour down into the 
globe’s opaque depths, then to separate, to co¬ 
ordinate neatly, and to picture Zobeid’s apart¬ 
ment as in a miniature. 

They saw every last detail of the apartment: 
the walls gemmed and inlaid; the floor of mar¬ 
ble mosaic and covered with gold-threaded 
Teheran rugs; the carved Arab furniture; the 
great silver vases filled with a profusion of 
flowers, orange-flaming lilies, deep-red damask 
roses, and masses of feathery parrot-tulips of 
the most exotic shades, some purple, some 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 238 


white-spotted and stained with crimson and 
violet, others so dark that they seemed black. 
They saw the immense dressing-table with 
everything arrayed in proper order: attar hold¬ 
ers, rose-water bottles, prepared sandalwood 
powder, saffron, and pods of musk. They saw, 
clustering about Zobeid’s couch, a great com¬ 
pany of men and women, amongst them her 
father, the Caliph of Bagdad. 

The latter had his head bent on his chest. 
His shoulders seemed to be shaking with great 
sobs. 

“What is the matter?” asked the Mongol 
with well-simulated excitement. 

Then, as though in answer to his question, in 
the miniature of the globe the Caliph turned. 
They saw tears streaming down his face; and, 
as the crowd about the couch drew aside, they 
saw the Princess stretched out, pale, hardly 
breathing—on the point of death, there was no 
doubt of it. 

Perhaps for the first time in his life, an idea 
not suggested by others popped into the Per¬ 
sian’s brain. 


234 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“Quick!” he said, stepping on the magic rug. 
“Come with me! Let us fly to Bagdad! We 
shall be there within the hour !” 

“Ah!” sighed the Indian, “to celebrate the 
death rites!” 

“Not at all! Has not our eminent colleague 
from Mongolia the mysterious apple which 
holds the secret of life and of death? Perhaps 
he will be able to save Zobeid—for me!” 

“No! For me!” interrupted the Hindu. 

“For myself! Just for myself personally!” 
came the Mongol’s unspoken thought as he 
joined the other two on the rug. 

“Hari Bol! Hari BolF shouted the Indian. 

“Fly! Fly away, O magic rug!” cried the 
Persian. 

“To the west—quickly!” commanded the 
Mongol. 

The rug rose from the ground and cut rapid¬ 
ly through the air toward Bagdad, while down 
below, on the road between the latter place and 
Terek el-Bey, in field and village and desert 
and hamlet, the excitement and consternation 
of the people who looked up and saw the won- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 235 

drous flying carpet, peaked to a hysterical 
pitch. 

Hundreds fainted with fright. 

Hundreds prostrated themselves and prayed 
to Allah and the Prophet Mohammed: 

“Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds! 
The Compassionate, the Merciful, the All- 
Merciful, the All-Understanding! Thee we 
worship 3 and Thee we ash for help! Guide us 
in the straight way, the way of those to whom 
Thou art gracious; not of those upon whom is 
Thy wrath nor of the erring!” The prayer was 
everywhere. 

“The Day of Judgment is here!” shouted a 
Dervish. “Behold—up there flieth the Arch¬ 
angel Gabriel, calling the souls to gather before 
Allah’s throne!” 

“Allah!” 

“Allah!” 

Steadily the excitement grew. 

Camels broke their halter-ropes and stam¬ 
peded. Horses followed suit. Dogs became 
mad and bit stray human legs. Cats bristled 
their hair and scratched and hissed. 


*236 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Seven old men and nine old women died with 
fear. 

Nineteen small children became ill with 
colic. 

A notorious drunkard gave oath that never 
again would he let fermented liquor touch his 
lips. A notorious Armenian usurer gave oath 
that never again would he charge over ninety- 
nine per cent compound interest a month. A 
notorious Greek banker gave oath that never 
again would he lie away his honor for the sake 
of oppressing the widows and the orphans. A 
notorious Jewish broker gave oath that never 
again would he cheat the simple Moslem vil¬ 
lagers by palming off bad coins on them. In¬ 
deed, it was claimed later on that the flying rug 
did more toward the moral reform of certain 
foreign elements in Arabistan and the whole 
of Islam than a thousand laws and a thousand 
painful bastinados. 

But if the people below were frightened, so 
was at least one of the magic carpet’s pas¬ 
sengers. 

For, earlier in the morning, the Prince of 
Persia had breakfasted well though not wisely 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 237 


on half a stuffed goose, a large raisin cake 
drowned in whipped cream, a bottle of scented 
Shiraz wine, and a fine dish of prawns; and the 
jerking, rolling, sidewise motion of the rug as 
it sailed through the ether was conducive 
neither to his peace of soul nor to his peace of 
stomach. He groaned; shuddered; felt faint; 
turned a delicate pea-green; and he would have 
fallen overboard had not the Prince of India 
lent him a helping hand. 

He was glad when, an hour later, the spires 
and roofs and painted domes of Bagdad came 
into sight, and when the rug flew low, entered 
the palace grounds, and at last sailed down the 
curved stairway into the apartment of the 
Princess. 

Here, too, was excitement; surprise; con¬ 
sternation; fear; questions: 

“What?” 

“Where?” 

“Whence?” 

“Why?” 

“How?” 

“Well—we are here, aren’t we?” replied the 
Prince of Persia, his pride overcoming his sea- 


238 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


sickness as he and the other two stepped down 
from the rug. “Here—to save the Princess!” 

[More hectic questions: 

“What?” 

“How?” 

“When?” 

Only the Moslem priests continued chant¬ 
ing their sobing, wailing liturgy since, given 
their vocation, they considered death much 
more important than life: 

“Urlium yah Rubb! Khalkat , elathi ent 
khalakta; urhum el-mezakin, wah el-juaanin, 
wah el-ayranin! Urhum—urhum y*Allah . . ” 

But the Mongol Prince interrupted their 
chant with chilly words: 

“You are previous, my saintly friends. The 
Princess is about to regain life!” 

“Kismet has decided that she must die!” ex¬ 
claimed one of the priests. 

“Maybe!” smiled the Mongol. “But I have 
decided that she must live!” 

“How?” demanded the Caliph. “I have con¬ 
sulted the greatest physicians and scientists and 
professors . . .” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 239 


“And similar learned jackasses, I know,” 
cut in the Mongol arrogantly. 

“Sir!” cried the German professor, turning 
livid with rage. 

“Sir!” echoed the French professor. 

“Sir! How dare you?” echoed the other 
savants; and for once it seemed that they were 
thoroughly in agreement. 

But the Mongol laughed. 

“Behold this apple!” he said, holding high 
the magic fruit. “The greatest rarity on earth! 
With its help Zobeid will live again!” 

It was a lucky thing that he was a Mongol, 
thus practical, rather coarse, basing his life on 
facts. For had he been Arab or Hindu or Per¬ 
sian, he would first have gone through half a 
hundred proper rites, would have observed due 
etiquette, and by the time he was ready to use 
the apple the Princess would have been dead 
for good. But, being a Mongol, a rough Man 
on Horseback in spite of his gorgeous Chinese 
robes, he calmly brushed aside learned men, 
philosophers, dry-nurses, slave girls, priests, 
sorcerers and eunuchs; stepped up to the 
couch; slipped an arm about the Princess’ 


240 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


shoulder without any ceremony; and scratched 
her slightly with the apple’s purple point. 

The effect was instantaneous. Zobeid sat 
up, her cheeks a healthy pink, her eyes clear 
and bright, her breath coming regularly. 

“A miracle!” cried the Caliph, rushing up to 
her and kissing her hand. 

“A miracle!” shouted they all; and so the 
death chant changed to a chant of thanksgiv¬ 
ing while the Mongol Prince, using the excite¬ 
ment as he might a cloak, stepped up to Fount- 
in-the-Forest. 

“Harmonious and exquisite thanks!” he 
whispered. “You have done your work well. 
I am grateful. Perhaps at a future date, after 
having been married to Zobeid for a few years, 
I shall reward you most splendidly by elevat¬ 
ing you to the gorgeous rank, position, and 
title of my Number-Two-Wife. But—first of 
all—I must marry the Number-One-Wife— 
Zobeid!” 

“Surely,” replied Fount-in-the-Forest, 
“there can be no doubt of it now?” 

“There should not be. But there might be. 
I believe in defeating Fate by preparing for 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 241 


the worst. For once my father told me that 
it is better for us to breakfast upon our ene¬ 
mies than to have our enemies dine upon us. 
So slip out of the palace, find Wong K’ai, and 
tell him to hold my warriors in readiness. If 
I need them, I shall give a signal.” 

“What signal?” 

“Three times I shall flutter my handkerchief 
from the window over there. Then let them 
attack town and palace with full, ruthless force. 
Ah!”—his narrow-lidded, oblique eyes gleamed, 
his teeth showed in a white, wolfish snarl, he 
was suddenly the Mongol, the rider, the raider 
—“let them spare neither man nor woman nor 
child! Let the ancient boast of our race come 
true—that grass will never grow again where 
once our horses’ feet have trod!” 

“Listen is obey, O Great Dragon!” said 
Fount-in-the-Forest triumphantly; and she 
kowtowed deeply, and left the palace to find 
Wong K’ai. 

The Mongol turned and joined the other two 
Princes who were busy answering the Caliph’s 
questions as to the Why and Wherefore of the 
extraordinary happening. 


242 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


“I am grateful—so grateful!” exclaimed the 
happy father, fondling his daughter’s hand. 
“Grateful to all of you!” 

“Do not forget that most of your gratitude 
belongs to this little magic apple!” suggested 
the Mongol. “With its help I restored life to 
your charming daughter. Life! The greatest 
gift in the world! Ah!”—he bowed deeply be¬ 
fore the Caliph—“the greatest rarity in the 
world! I found it! Be pleased, O delightful 
Zobeid, to accept it as a present!” He gave 
the magic fruit to Zemzem, the Princess’ faith¬ 
ful Arab slave girl; and once more addressed 
the Caliph: “I have succeeded! I found and 
brought back the most marvelous treasure on 
earth! And now, according to your and your 
daughter’s pledge, I claim her as my own— 
my bride—my wife!” 

“Fair and just!” admitted the Caliph of 
Bagdad; but his words as well as Zobeid’s ex¬ 
clamation of horror and consternation were 
swallowed in the Indian’s angry: 

“Why—the pretensions of this Mongol are 
absolutely preposterous! Saved Zobeid’s life, 
did he? By Shiva! There is hardly a Brah- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 248 


min or holy fakir in Hindustan who is not fa¬ 
miliar with SanjivTvividya —the science of re¬ 
storing the dead to life!” 

“Pardon me,” sneered the Mongol, “but why 
did you not use this marvelous science?” 

“Partly because, in my excitement and 
grief, I did not happen to think of it; and part¬ 
ly because, knowing that Zobeid would marry 
me, I did not wish to rob you of the glory of 
having cured—ah!”—he smiled like the cat that 
has stolen the cream—“the future Queen of 
India. For I claim Zobeid’s hand. Here”— 
as he gave the magic crystal to Zemzem—“is 
the greatest rarity on earth I Without its help 
we would not have known of Zobeid’s terrible 
plight! She is mine—mine—mine!” 

“There is something in what you say,” ad¬ 
mitted the Caliph. He turned to his daughter. 
“Zobeid, I really believe that he is right and 
that . . 

“Wait a moment! Just wait a moment!” 
cut in the Prince of Persia. “A fiddlestick for 
magic globe and magic apple! Valuable—I 
grant. Also interesting. But it was my magic 
flying carpet which brought us here in time to 


244 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


save the Princess’ life. Here”—as he spread 
the rug in front of the couch—“is the greatest 
treasure, the rarest gift in the Lord Allah’s 
Creation! By its token I claim your daugh¬ 
ter’s hand, O Caliph of all the Faithful!” 

“By the honor of my beard,” said the latter. 
“The Persian, too, is right!” 

“But, father dear! I am an obedient daugh¬ 
ter. Still—I cannot marry the three of them, 
can I?” 

“Hardly!” admitted the Caliph. 

“Then—what shall I do!” 

“You are mine!” cried the Indian. 

“Mine!” exclaimed the Persian. 

“Mine! Mine own!” growled the Mongol. 

They surrounded the Caliph, clamoring, 
arguing, quarreling, protesting. They drew 
him to one side while the Princess, obeying a 
sudden impulse, turned to Zemzem. 

“Quick!” she whispered. “Before they no¬ 
tice! Ask the magic crystal to show us what 
Ahmed is doing.” 

Zemzem was sitting cross-legged in front of 
the couch, her back to the others so that they 
could not see. She spoke low words to the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 245 


crystal. She stared into it. Then she looked 
up excitedly. 

“Heaven-Born!” came her sibilant murmur. 
“The Thief of Bagdad is on his way home!” 

“Oh-” Zobeid forced back the exclama¬ 

tion. 

“Yes. He flies. Flies through the air— 
mounted on a great white horse with shiny 
silver wings! Over valley he flies—and moun¬ 
tain—and stream—and forest—and desert! 
West he flies—home—to Bagdad—astride his 
great, winged horse!” 

Zobeid laughed aloud with happiness. She 
called to the Caliph: “Father! Father, dear!” 

“Yes, little daughter?” he asked, turning. 
“What is it?” 

“Here am I,” she laughed again, “like a 
donkey between three bundles of hay—and I 
do not know how to choose.” 

“Not a very flattering comparison to your¬ 
self,” smiled the Caliph of Bagdad. 

“Nor to my tree suitors, I am afraid,” Zo¬ 
beid went on, “for they represent the three 
bundles of hay. Without the Indian’s crystal, 
they could not have known of my plight. 



246 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Without the Persian’s carpet, they could not 
have come here so quickly. And without the 
Mongol’s apple, they could not have cured me. 
Which of the three shall I choose?” 

“If you choose one, the other two will ob¬ 
ject,” replied her father, wearily. “They have 
already deafened me with their arguing and 
counter-arguing, their accusations and coun¬ 
ter-accusations.” He sighed. “Oh—I am so 
tired!” 

“So am I,” said the Princess. “Let us all 
go to sleep. Tomorrow will be time enough 
to decide.” 

“A good idea, daughter!” 

Still grumbling, the three Princes assented. 
They left the apartment. But the Mongol, 
after bowing good-night to Zobeid, stopped 
for a moment near the window, as if wishing to 
look at the glorious view of Bagdad, golden 
and green beneath the setting sun. Three 
times he waved his handkerchief. He smiled 
thinly, cruelly, as almost immediately from a 
tower nearby an immense, triangular, red-and- 
gold flag was dipped—three times—in answer. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 247 


He knew that flag. The battle flag of his race. 
It was stiff with gold; stiffer with gore. 

Whatever the morrow’s decision, Zobeid 
would be his. Night would come soon. Bag¬ 
dad would fall asleep. And then his Mongol 
warriors jumping to arms—the attack! 

Again he bowed before the Princess, and 
left. 

Alone with Zemzem, Zobeid stared into the 
magic crystal; stared into it to her heart’s con¬ 
tent. 

Ahmed had flown down from the sky, not 
far from an enormous defile. He had dis¬ 
mounted from his winged horse. 

“Why,” exclaimed the Princess, “look, Zem¬ 
zem ! He is talking to the horse! And—look, 
look! The horse seems to reply!” 

“Impossible!” cried Zemzem. “I can im¬ 
agine Ahmed talking to the horse. But—the 
horse replying to Ahmed . . . ? Why—it 
sounds like a fairy tale. It cannot be.” 

But, Zemzem’s doubt notwithstanding, it 
was. 

For as the ancient Arab chronicle comments: 

“When the impossible happens, it exists. A 


248 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


stone swims in the water, when eyes behold the 
fact of it. A monkey sings a Kashmiri love 
song, when ears hear the fact of it. Only 
idiots, old spinsters, cats, and learned profes¬ 
sors contradict the testimony of their own five 
senses.” 

Indeed, having reached the western end of 
the Valley of the Seven Temptations, the 
horse had flown down to earth, and when Ah¬ 
med had dismounted had said to him, speaking 
in fair Arabic: 

“I am, as you know, the Horse of Winged 
Imagination. At this side of the valley im¬ 
agination ceases and, stretching to the West, 
to Bagdad, begins the life and world of hard 
facts. Back yonder you have learned several 
lessons, overcoming your pride, your envy, 
your jealousy, and gaining faith in Allah and 
the Prophet Mohammed—on Him the salute! 
—as well as resignation to the sendings of 
Fate. You also acquired two treasures, the 
silver box and the cloak of invisibility—which 
latter, by the way, as you will learn presently, 
shields your soul from the infamous lies and 
envy and hate of worthless people. I cannot 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 249 


carry you any farther. For I am wanted back 
yonder, near the shore of the Midnight Sea, 
where another mortal is waiting for me to help 
him back across the abyss of black desires 
which, single-handed, even as you did, he con¬ 
quered and crossed. Salaam aleykum!” 

Without waiting for the Thief of Bagdad 
to reply, the Horse of Winged Imagination 
spread wide its splendid shining pinions, rose 
into the air in a graceful curve, turned East, 
and soon was nothing but a tiny speck of sil¬ 
ver against the vaulting purple of the evening 
sky. 

The Thief of Bagdad was alone. 

He felt conscious of a certain sharp clutch 
and lift at the heart; a certain fear; a certain 
nervous apprehension as to what the future 
might bring. These seven months he had lived 
in a dim, motley, coiling world of wizardy 
where currents of primeval, cosmic earth life 
had tugged at his inmost self, changing por¬ 
tions of this self, changing his very soul—giv¬ 
ing him a new soul. Now this new soul of Ah¬ 
med, the Thief of Bagdad, faced once more the 


250 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


old facts of life; this new soul felt like an alien 
amongst the old facts of life. 

He looked to the West. 

There leagues of beach wood poured down 
the slope of the hills in an enormous cataract 
of green and black-green foam, smothered 
farther down in an exuberance of blue and gol¬ 
den flowers. Beyond it stretched the desert; 
and across the desert cut a narrow caravan 
trail—the road to Bagdad. 

Bagdad! Hundreds of miles away! 

With the thought came a sharp and bitter 
pain. Why—he said to himself—it was near 
the end of the seventh moon. Tomorrow was 
the last day. Had he then conquered himself 
only to lose what he loved most on earth: Zo- 
beid? Yet, even with the pain gnawing at his 
heart and soul, he bowed his head in resigna¬ 
tion to the decrees of Fate, and gave thanks to 
Allah: 

“Say: He is the One God; God the Eter¬ 
nal! He beggeteth not, nor is begotten. Nor 
is there one like unto Him! Yerily I declare 
that He is the One God and that Mohammed 
is the Messenger of God!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 251 


Then he squared his shoulders. Hundreds 
of miles to Bagdad, across desert and forest 
and mountain and desert again, and only one 
day to cover the distance. It was impossible. 
But he must try. So he stepped out, into the 
world of facts. He put his feet on the road of 
life; life that, as he descended the slope of the 
hill, pulsed everywhere about him, immense in 
power, moving swiftly, surging close to his 
heels and hands and heart, striding behind him 
and before, urging him on. 

On he walked through the night, hungry, 
tired, his feet sore and bleeding, until very 
slowly the dawn of morning came with fantas¬ 
tic, purple spikes and the sun racing along the 
rim of the horizon in a sea of red and gold. 

Then, at the edge of the desert, he saw a 
great gate of horn and ivory athwart the trail. 
The gate opened, and from it came the hermit 
whom, seven months earlier, he had met after 
he had passed through the defile of the Hill of 
Eternal Fire, the Hill of Pride. 

Ahmed was about to walk on with a curt: 
“Salaam aleykiim!” 


252 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


But the hermit stopped him with a gesture 
of his thin, high-veined hands. 

“Why—Ahmed!” he exclaimed, rather hurt. 
“I am glad to see you! Glad that you made 
the wondrous journey in safety! Come—and 
swap the time of day with an old friend!” 

Ahmed shook his head. 

“I am sorry,” he replied. “But I am in a 
devilish hurry. I have only about twelve hours 
in which to walk nearly seven hundred miles. 
Besides, my feet burn like fire. Besides, I am 
hungry enough to eat a stewed mule. Be¬ 
sides . . .” 

“Besides you are a fool!” interrupted the 
hermit. 

“Thanks for the compliment!” 

“No compliment intended. I am stating a 
fact. Thief of Bagdad—aren’t you?” 

“Well—used to be. What about it?” 

“I cannot help wondering,” laughed the her¬ 
mit, “that, during your former light-fingered 
career, you got away without being caught 
time and again. Why—you have not even an 
ounce of mother’s wit.” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 253 


“Insults are no argument. Kindly explain!” 
demanded Ahmed stiffly. 

“Here you have the magic silver box—I can 
see it sticking out of your waist shawl—and 
you have not even enough sense to use it.” 

“Use it?” 

“Yes. Open it. Don’t you know what is in¬ 
side?” 

“Happiness—also honor, I was told.” 

“Rightly told! But, Ahmed, happiness is a 
helpmeet to those who deserve it—as you de¬ 
serve it, having conquered your own self. And 
honor, too, helps in life’s struggles. Honor is 
really a very practical and constructive virtue. 
Fine ideals always are. That is exactly where 
cynical philosophers are wrong. Look!”—as 
Ahmed opened the little silver box—“do you 
see the tiny yellow seeds?” 

“What are they?” 

“They are seeds from the Flower of Unful¬ 
filled but Righteous Desire. Throw a seed on 
the ground. Wish hard. And if the wish be 
just and right, a puff of smoke will rise from 
the earth where the seed struck it, and at once 
you will have your wish fulfilled. Why”—as 


254 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Ahmed hesitated—“don’t you believe me ? Try 
it! Wish! Wish hard!” 

“Very well,” replied Ahmed; and, raising 
his hands to heaven, he exclaimed: “I want a 
horse—a horse swift as the wind, to cover the 
distance between here and Bagdad before the 
day is over. And I also want a square meal. 
For I am terribly hungry!” 

He took one of the little seeds, dropped it, 
and at once a puff of smoke rose from the 
ground, and there stood a tall, splendid, broad- 
backed Marwari stallion, black with a white 
star on the forehead, white stockings, dainty 
but strong hocks, and gorgeously saddled and 
bridled. 

“By Allah!” cried Ahmed. “The silver box 
works!” 

He dropped another seed; came another puff 
of smoke; and a table came out of the nowhere, 
covered with snowy linen, glass, silver, fruit, 
drink, and platters of steaming food. 

“Come, wise hermit!” laughed Ahmed. “Be 
my guest! Here is food enough for two!” 

They ate. Then the hermit blessed Ahmed, 
who mounted the stallion and was off. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 255 


The horse paced away faster than the wind 
—faster and faster—a mile at a jump—a mile 
at a leap—a mile at each stretch of its splendid, 
steely body. 

Ahmed rode as he had never ridden before. 
He rode with a song in his heart. For here 
was his Fate blazing ahead of him like a sacred 
Grail; and, through the velvety glow of the 
sun, through the purple shadows of the low, 
volcanic hills which flanked the road and which 
danced like hobgoblins among the dwarf aloes, 
through the click-clanketty-click of the stal¬ 
lion’s dancing feet, there came to him the clari¬ 
on call to life’s happiness and life’s work and 
life’s fulfilment. 

The farther West he rode, the clearer be¬ 
came the singing joy in his heart. 

Click-clanketty-click spoke the horse’s danc¬ 
ing feet. A gecko slipped away through the 
brush. A low-flapping bird brushed his face. 
The sun bored down with a brutish, flaming 
gesture. 

There were few signs of life. Once in a while 
a carrion-hawk poised high in the parched, blue 
sky above him. Twice he passed Tartar camel 


256 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


riders, short, lean, brown, bow-legged men, 
whose jaws and brows were bound mummy 
fashion against the stinging sand of the desert, 
and who touched their rosary beads with super¬ 
stitious awe as the wild horseman swept past 
them, faster than the North wind. 

On he rode, bending over the horse’s neck, 
lifting it with every stride, keeping its nose 
straight to the road—a mile at a leap—a mile 
at a jump—a mile at each stretch of its splen¬ 
did, steely body; until, having ridden the night 
through, he saw in the distance, in the greenish 
gloom of young day, a dark mass looming up: 
the oasis of Terek el-Bey—and Bagdad not far 
away. 

The dark mass was becoming more distinct 
with every second. It split into tents and palm 
trees; and Ahmed dismounted to say his morn¬ 
ing prayers: 

“Allah! I praise Thee and I thank Thee! 
For Thou art the Lord God! Thou art . . 

“Yoo-yoo-yoo! Yoo-yoo-yoo !”—a great 
sobbing and wailing dfowned his prayers with 
loud, overlapping tone waves. 

He looked up. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 257 


There, straggling down the road, coming 
from the direction of Bagdad, he saw a huge 
mob of men and women and children; hurry¬ 
ing, hurrying; loaded with household goods, 
having picked up what first had come to hand, 
like people when their home is burning above 
their heads—useless, absurd things; beating 
their breasts; crying, yelling, weeping—and 
hurrying, ever hurrying. 

Ahmed stopped an old man. 

“What has happened?” he demanded. 

“The Mongols have taken Bagdad,” came the 
shattering reply. “They have captured the 
Caliph and the Princess Zobeid. They are mur¬ 
dering the people. They are polluting the 
wells. They are stabling their horses in the 
temples of Allah. They are crucifying the 
priests. They are looting and burning the an¬ 
cient town!” 

“Yoo-yro-yoo! Yoo-yoo-yoo !”—rose again 
the sobbing and wailing, while Ahmed bowed 
toward Mecca. 

“Forgive me, O Lord God,” he said, “that 
this morning I cannot finish my prayer. But 


258 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


my heart and soul and fist are needed at Bag¬ 
dad!” 

And he mounted his stallion and rode away. 








CHAPTER X 

P 

* 












CHAPTER X 


On the evening before, after Wong K’ai had 
replied to the message of the Mongol Prince’s 
fluttering handkerchief by dipping the crim¬ 
son, triangular flag three times, he had waited 
until dark. 

Bagdad was asleep. Night lay over the 
slumbering town with a trailing cloak of pur¬ 
ple shadows. In the black depths of the sky 
hung tiny points of light that glistened with 
the cold gleam of diamonds. The bazars were 
shuttered until the morning. So were the 
houses and palaces, with no sign of life except, 
here and there, a light springing warm and 
friendly through chink or curtained window. 
The mosques were empty. Nobody was abroad 
except, occasionally, a watchman making the 
rounds with swinging lantern and steel-shod 
pike; a prowling leprous beggar nosing for 
scraps in a heap of refuse; a lover returning 
from a scented, romantic meeting. Another 
261 


262 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


half hour—and the watchmen fell asleep in dark 
posterns and doorways, squatting comfortably, 
their pikes across their drawn-up knees; the 
beggars sought the asylum of their hovels to 
whine their complaints to other beggars; the 
lovers returned home to dream. 

Not a sound now except a dim stir of leaves 
blown about by some vagabond wisp of wind. 

Black, silent, the night looked down. 

Then, at the shock of midnight, according to 
the prearranged signal, Wong K’ai mounted 
the tower of the Caravanserai of the Tartar 
Traders. There, secretly, an enormous beacon 
had been prepared these many weeks. He lit 
it. A few seconds later, the flame of it stabbed 
through the velvety gloom with an intense, 
strident, threatening, golden wedge. Another 
second—and from the minaret of the Mosque 
of Suleyman the Magnificent a gleaming cir¬ 
cle of torches replied to the beacon, sending 
showers of sparks. At once, in the four quar¬ 
ters of the city, other torches took up the 
message, puncturing the night. The sky grew 
scarlet and crimson, like a netted weave of mol¬ 
ten, half-liquid metal, with a trail of emerald- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 263 


green and peacock-green cutting through it. 
Reds softened to violets. The torches moved 
through the streets, with the tramp-tramp- 
tramp of marching feet. The fires were like 
the blood-gleam in an immense, black opal. 

Came a bull-like roar of long-stemmed Mon¬ 
gol war trumpets; a beating of drums; a shrill¬ 
ing and wailing of fifes. 

Here and there a watchman awoke, startled, 
frightened, picking up his steel-shod pike. 
What was it? A conflagration? Perhaps a 
tribal row of desert Bedawins drunk with has¬ 
heesh in some caravanserai? Revolt? Mu¬ 
tiny? 

“Who goes there ?”—the watchmen’s chal¬ 
lenging questions as shadows came round the 
street comers with a crackle of naked steel. 

They had no time to find the answer. Out 
of the dark in back of them—where these many 
hours Mongol spies had been watching them— 
leaped other shadows. The flash of curved 
Mongol daggers. Pikes clattered harmlessly 
to the ground. A sob and gurgle of death. 
Blood staining bright tunics, staining darkly 
the earth. 


264 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


The next moment it seemed as if all Bag¬ 
dad’s alleys and bazars and caravanserais were 
disgorging the flat-featured, yellow-skinned 
warriors of the North and the East, iron- 
capped, chain-armored, armed with lances and 
swords and battle-axes. A forest of oval- 
bladed, tall spears moved rapidly across the 
Square of the One-Eyed Jew. Other Mon¬ 
gols rushed out of houses and palaces where 
they had hired themselves out as servants. 

A Babel of war cries rose, in Tartar and 
Mongol and harsh, guttural Manchu. 

In companies of a hundred each, four abreast, 
they marched through Bagdad, with a steady, 
forward motion. Scarred, wind-beaten— 
stained with the blood of many battles, the mud 
of many bivouacs, but in their tramp the ring¬ 
ing rhythm of success, pennants and standards 
fluttering vivid brightness of device and colors 
above the dazzling glitter of tall spears. 

Then, as always, with the scent and hope of 
loot, the Mongol ranks broke here and there as 
fists crashed against doors, as weapons pried 
open locks, as men rushed across thresholds to 
rob and kill. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 265 


Wong K’ai exchanged a quick word with the 
war captains. 

“An hour’s looting! Then the attack against 
the palace!” He smiled with cruel amusement. 
“Wild dogs must be fed before they can be 
trained!” 

They were excited shouts and queries as win¬ 
dows were thrown open. Householders leaned 
out. Heads were quickly withdrawn as battle- 
axes came whistling and whirling through the 
air. 

“Allah! What was it? A band of robbers 
from the desert, setting at defiance the Caliph’s 
law ? B edawin raiders ? 

“Help! Help! Soldiers! Police! This is 
the Caliph’s town! Must we have our honest 
sleep disturbed by pulling, quarreling desert 
rats?” 

Then, as the torches flared higher, bathing 
the streets in a sea of light, as steel-clad war¬ 
riors invaded the houses: 

“Oh—by the Prophet!—the Mongols! The 
Mongols!—God protect us!” 

A shudder ran over Bagdad. The Mongols! 
The flat-nosed, yellow-skinned riders of the 


266 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


North! The terror of all Asia and half Europe! 
The Scourge of God! The dread warriors with 
the awe of whose name German and Russian 
mothers frightened their naughty children! 

“Dear Lord God”—came a Moslem priest’s 
stammered prayer—“against the darkness of 
the night when it overtaketh me and against the 
Mongol scourge, I betake me for refuge to 
Allah, the Lord of Daybreak . . 

He had no time to finish the prayer. A 
squat, bow-legged Mongol captain rushed into 
the Mosque. His crooked sabre flashed away 
from the tassled cord that held it. The point of 
it gleamed like a cresset of evil passions. It 
descended. It cut across the priest’s neck with 
a dull, sickning whisk-whisk-whisk. The priest 
fell backward with a soft, gurgling cry—his 
blood trickling slowly, staining God’s altar with 
splotches of rich crimson. 

Arab soldiers tumbled out of their barracks, 
strapping on their weapons as they ran. They 
went down before the Mongol lances as ripe 
wheat before a reaper’s blade. The scourge 
passed on. Gates shook. Walls crumbled. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 267 


The streets ran red with blood. Flames licked 
over roofs with yellow tongues. 

They tore through the peaceful town with the 
swish of the sword, the scream and bray of war 
trumpets, the rasp of bamboo lance butts, the 
thud of broad blades; here and there like a 
scarlet typhoon of destruction; blazing up and 
down the streets and alleys with the leap of their 
lean knives; already, from desert and forest 
and mountain, the carrion-hawks wheeling and 
dipping to the feast and paralleling the Mon¬ 
gols’ progress on eager wings; looting, burning, 
killing. 

“An easy thing to write about,” comments 
the ancient Arabic chronicle—“a horrible thing 
to picture. For the sabre was the only god 
whom these accursed, dog-faced Mongols wor¬ 
shipped. May their souls burn in the lowest 
depths of perdition for a thousand eternities to 
come!” 

Looting. Burning. Killing. 

Treasure smashed and torn and trampled on, 
because found useless or too heavy to carry 
away. Priceless rugs slashed. Priceless por¬ 
celain shivered to pieces. Priceless lives—of 


268 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


children and poets and philosophers—sacri¬ 
ficed to the god of the sabre. Broken doors. 
Gutted shops. Shivered walls. Huddled in 
frightened heaps, crawled into the darkness of 
cellars and cisterns, where the wounded, a rem¬ 
nant of the living, crazed with anguish and 
terror. Out in the open streets and alleys, was 
stench of festering flesh, loathsomeness, a crim¬ 
son, sickening mush of what once had been 
useful, contented human life. 

Ruins. Temples of God desecrated. Shaggy 
Tartar ponies stabled in the holiest of holies. 
An Empire lost in a night. 

Death. Torture. Decay. Sacrilege. The 
Mongol’s historic mission before Islam tamed 
and civilized him. And, up in his room in the 
Caliph’s palace, the Mongol Prince looking 
out upon the doomed city of Bagdad and utter¬ 
ing the ancient boast of his dynasty: 

“I am the enemy of god—of pity—and of 
mercy!” , 

In the meantime, out in the streets, the cap¬ 
tains were giving orders to stop the sack: 

“To the palace! To the attack! Tomorrow 
you can continue your looting!” 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 269 


They fell once more into military formation. 
Four abreast, they rolled through the streets 
of Bagdad, relentless, resistless, with the thun¬ 
der of the drums, the bull-like roar of the long¬ 
stemmed trumpets, the sardonic shrilling of the 
fifes, the crackle of weapons, the yelling of 
savage, throaty war cries—with a sweeping, 
indomitable energy that raised the crunching, 
cruel soul of the Mongol scorge into something 
nearly magnificent. 

On—the forest of lances! On—the dazzling 
glitter of tall spears! On—the fluttering of the 
battle flags! On—with the flames that licked 
over the Bagdad bazars peaking higher and 
higher, changing night into ruddy day, glint¬ 
ing on steel and iron with running white high¬ 
lights, shimmering with gold and silver on keen- 
edged swords and armor. 

They swarmed like locusts. They killed 
whatever was in their path. Thus Germany 
had known them, paying for defeat with the 
flower of its knighted chivalry on East Prus¬ 
sia’s and Silesia’s battlefields. Thus Russia and 
Poland had feared them, trampled into bloody 
mire beneath the feet of their small, shaggy 


270 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ponies. Thus China and India and Hungary 
had wilted beneath their blight. Thus, time and 
again, they had drawn a crimson furrow across 
half the world. Thus, this day, Bagdad—and 
with Bagdad all Araby, all Islam—seemed 
doomed to fall under their pitiless yoke. 

They marched down the broad avenue that 
led to the palace of the Caliph; marched clums¬ 
ily—being men born and bred on horseback— 
but steadily. The high call of an ivory horn 
stabbed out; it was repeated from troop to 
troop; and at once they split into three columns. 
One column swung West to cut off the defend¬ 
ers should they try for retreat or sally. The 
second column flanked the great garden which 
surrounded the palace, made a living platform 
and staircase with the help of their steel-bossed, 
buffalo-hide arm shields, clambered up on the 
wall, jumped down the farther side. The third 
column, composed of picked Manchu shock 
troops, giants in size and strength, made direct 
for the steel front gate. It gave under their 
massed impetus as if it were brittle glass—and 
fear swept over the palace servants and slaves 
and eunuchs who, at the news of the Mongol 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 271 


attack, had been formed there to give battle. 

They ran away, throwing down their weap¬ 
ons, with frenzied cries, pressing, pressing— 
fighting, killing each other in their mad haste 
to escape. A sea of black and brown and white 
—hands striking out crazily, futilely—voices 
bellowing puny defiance— other voices implor¬ 
ing for mercy—tearing screams as the Mongol 
spears went home—bodies falling, trampled, 
crushed. 

The caliph’s bodyguard of noble Arabs ral¬ 
lied. They fought bravely. But the Mongol 
horde waved them aside as with a single, con¬ 
temptuous gesture—killed them with that same 
gesture. On the battlements a few watchmen 
jumped into the fray. They were tumbled 
off the walls to be caught and impaled by the 
forest of lances below. 

The Mongols poured into the palace. 

Too late the Caliph had understood the Mon¬ 
gol Prince’s treachery. At first, like the city 
watchmen, like the Bagdad citizens roused 
from sleep, he had imagined that it was only 
a passing riot of Bedawin desertmen. Too late, 
now that he knew, accompanied by a handful of 


272 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


soldiers and by the Princes of India and Persia 
—poor little man, his spirit was willing though 
his flesh was decidedly over-weight—he rushed 
toward the Mongol Prince’s room to make him 
pay with his life. 

Too late! 

On the stairway they met the vanguard of 
the invaders; were pulled down; heard the Mon¬ 
gol Prince’s ironic command to his warriors as 
he stepped from his room: 

“Do not harm them. For as to the Caliph, 
I shudder at the sacrilegious thought of killing 
my future father-in-law. And as to the descen¬ 
dant of Hindustan’s impotent gods and the 
descendant of Persia’s grease pots—why”— 
he laughed—“before I kill them I shall have 
them harnessed like horses to my chariot of 
victory, tomorrow, when I shall drive in 
triumph through the streets of Bagdad!” 

To the Persian’s greater glory be it said 
that, in spite of his fear, he broke into a flood 
of abuse, calling the other every bad name he 
could think of: 

“Traitor! Pig! Dog-faced Mongol bar- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 273 


barian! Seller of hog’s tripe! Descendant of 
monkeys!” 

More of the sort. Nor did the Mongol inter¬ 
rupt him. He waited until lack of breath caused 
the Persian to stop. Then he smiled. 

“You are braver than I imagined, O great 
sausage!” he replied. “Very well. Your tor¬ 
tures tomorrow shall be lengthy, novel, and ex¬ 
quisite—to let me see how brave you really are!” 

Then, at his order, they dragged the captives 
away, while he returned to his room, closing 
the door. 

From the outside, strident cries and yells 
drifted in as the Mongol swords leaped to their 
grim work. 

He smiled. Then he frowned. He wished to 
be alone, quite alone with his pride and his 
coiling thoughts. So he closed the windows 
and the heavy iron shutters. The noises from 
the outside ceased. Only a dim memory of 
sounds was left in gliding, vibrant tone waves— 
very soft, very far away, not at all like the echo 
of battle and death. 

There was now in the room a cloak of enor- 


274 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


mous, breath-clogging stillness. Crushing, un¬ 
human stillness. 

For a few seconds he stood quite motionless, 
thoughts flashing and zigzagging through his 
brain, deeply furrowing his yellow, stark 
devil’s-mask of a face. 

Then he walked to a taboret on which was 
a narrow, square package wrapped in silk of 
imperial yellow, embroidered with the five- 
clawed dragon. He took off the wrapping; 
took out a dozen tiny, very thin tablets of em¬ 
erald-green, transparent jade inlaid in gold 
with a succession of Mandarin hieroglyphics. 
These tablets were the ancestral tablets of his 
clan, reaching back into the dim mists of an¬ 
tiquity when his forefathers were still wild 
shepherd chiefs near the shores of Lake Baikal, 
in Central Asia. Generation for generation, 
century for century, victory for victory, also 
occasional defeats when the Mongols were 
driven back into the steppes, thence to issue 
again, a generation later, with renewed vigor 
and savagery—generation for generation, the 
history of his clan was gold-engraved there on 
the smooth jade tablets. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 275 


He bowed before the tablets with slow, pro¬ 
per ceremony. He filled a bronze bowl with 
black incense powder, lit it, and watched the 
scented smoke curl up in opalescent spirals. 
From the ceiling lamp a yellow ray of light 
stabbed down, cutting across his face as clean 
as with a knife, emphasizing the prominent 
cheek bones, the oblique, heavy-lidded eyes, the 
thin lips, heightening the expression of stony 
relentlessness on his features, yet, too, 
strangely, incongruously, lending to them 
something akin to spiritual ecstasy. He stared 
at the coiling incense clouds. Through the 
whirling, perfumed smoke he saw the green 
glitter of his ancestral tablets; saw there his 
own aim and the aim of his race—like a blood- 
red, challenging scrawl across the history of all 
the world. 

Again he bowed, with hands clasped across 
his chest. Then he spoke. It was a prayer to 
his race, his tribe, his clan, his dynasty, him¬ 
self. 

A prayer. Too, a grim prohecy: 

“As long as water runs and the wind blows* 
as long as fire bums and the seas toss, so long 


27 6 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


shall the Mongol race endure. It runs its way 
like a shuttle through all the broad lands of the 
earth, waving an eternal, unbreakable fabric. 
Time and again, in the past, the Mongol power 
has gone down before the gathered strength of 
other races, snatching at and taking the luring 
jewel of dominion. Time and again we re¬ 
turned to the attack; we shivered the fetters; 
we enslaved the enslavers. Time and again, in 
the future, the Mongol power shall go down 
before the gathered strength of other races, 
snatching at and taking the luring jewel of 
power. Time and again we shall return to 
the attack; we shall shiver the fetters; we shall 
enslave the enslavers.” His voice rose shrilly, 
triumphantly. “Yellow, toothy wolves we, of 
our mothers’ bearing! Never shall we eat dirt 
to stay our craving! Ours is the greatest am¬ 
bition, the greatest call, the greatest mission on 
earth. We cleanse with the swish of the sword 
when it is red. And the end is not yet; will not 
be for many centuries; never will be. For ours 
is the only pure race on earth. Our race is un¬ 
dying, eternal. The Emperors of Germany 
and of Russia, the Kings of Poland and Hun- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 277 


gary, the Dukes of Lithuania and the Volga 
Tribes, the Chiefs and Khans and Princes of 
half the world have gone down before the shin¬ 
ing Mongol sword. Thus, in the future, Kings 
and Nations and Republics shall kowtow be¬ 
fore our curved scimitars and kiss the shadows 
of our horses’ feet. Time and again! Time 
and again! For ours is the vigor and the energy 
and the subtle brain and the harsh, ruthless 
will. Ours is forever the mighty, ever resur¬ 
gent resurrection of race. All that is welded 
together by the rest of mankind we shall again 
and again tear asunder. All that has been built 
by the rest of mankind we shall again and again 
overthrow. All the weak deities invented and 
worshipped by the rest of mankind we shall 
again and again send down to oblivion and 
ridicule. For we are the Scourge of God!” 

He bowed once more before the jade tablets; 
then turned as the door opened to admit Weng 
K’ai. 

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “I shall ele¬ 
vate the Princess Zobeid to the dragon throne. 
She is of foreign race. I know. But the Mon¬ 
gol race is stronger. My great-grandfather 


278 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


married a German Princess captured in war, 
but the son of this union, my grandfather, was 
pure Mongol. My grandfather married an 
Indian Princess stolen by Tartar raiders, but 
my father was pure Mongol. My father mar¬ 
ried a Persian Princess, sent to him as a trib¬ 
ute by the Shah-in-Shah, but I am pure Mon¬ 
gol. I shall marry an Arab Princess. But my 
sons shall be pure Mongol.” 

He paused; went on: 

“Tell Zobeid to prepare for the wedding. 
Let it be a wedding after the Mongol manner. 
Bestow on every one of my soldiers a horse, a 
slave, and three gold pieces. Bestow on every 
one of my war captains nine times nine white 
stallions, nine times nine precious pearls, nine 
times nine crimson robes of honor, nine times 
nine pieces of gold, nine times nine rolls of silk, 
and nine times nine female slaves. Have all the 
astrologers, sorcerers, soothsayers, and witch¬ 
doctors fed at my expense. Let there be a 
tinkling of bells and burning of incense and 
chanting of songs throughout Bagdad. See 
that all the Moslem priests be crucified at the 
altars of their impotent Allah. Have all the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 279 


Christian and Jewish merchants’ teeth pulled 
one by one, so that their cries may make sweet 
music. Give to the Princess Zobeid as my wed¬ 
ding present the Kingdom of Tartary, the 
Chieftainship of Outer Mongolia, the Viceroy¬ 
alty of Manchuria, the Island of Wak, and the 
revenues from nineteen thousand villages and 
cities in Russia and Siberia. Tell her that I 
shall confer upon her the charming and elegant 
title of the Model of Ten Thousand Female 
Generations to Come!” 

“Listen is obey, O Great Dragon!” mur¬ 
mured Wong K’ai and withdrew, while the 
Prince of the Mongols walked over to the win¬ 
dow and opened it. 

He looked out. 

Gradually the loom of the night lifted; the 
fires set here and there by the looting Mongol 
warriors had died out; and the smoke veil 
which had covered the town twisted up in 
baroque spirals and tore into gauzelike ara¬ 
besques. 

He gave a sensuous, throaty exclamation of 
triumph. 

For down there at his feet Bagdad became 


280 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


more and more distinct every minute. There 
stretched hundreds of flat, dazzling white roof¬ 
tops, richly adorned towers, fairy-like turrets, 
and hell-shaped Arab domes. Under the rays 
of the young sun the sloping roof of a Mosque 
in the middle of the city burned like the plum¬ 
age of a gigantic peacock with every mysteri¬ 
ous blend of blue and green and purple and 
heliotrope. The whole was buried in flaunting 
gardens gay with many-colored trees and 
shrubs and bushes, with crotons and mangoes, 
with roses and mellingtonias, with poinsettias 
and begonia creepers. 

Bagdad! Bagdad was his! His the domin¬ 
ion over Araby and—soon, soon—over all 
Islam! His the subjection of these stiff¬ 
necked Arabs, these stiff-necked Semites! His 
the worship of their grief-stricken sobbing and 
wailing that beat up from city and palace in 
immense tone waves. . . . 

Yet in the palace there was one that night 
who neither wailed nor sobbed nor complained. 
It was Zobeid, although there were Mongol 


THE THIEF OF EAGDAD 281 


warriors in her very bedroom, watching her for 
fear that she might commit suicide. 

But there was no such thought in her brain. 
Huddled close against Zemzem, she whispered 
to her the reason for her serene fortitude of 
soul. 

“Ahmed is coming!” she said. “Aye! He 
is coming! I saw it in the magic crystal!” 

“But he is alone, Heaven-Born! What can 
one man do against the Mongol horde?” 

“Have you ever been in love, Zemzem?” 
smiled Zobeid. 

“Oh, yes. Three or four times.” 

“I do not believe you.” 

“Why not, Heaven-Bom?” 

“Because, if you had really been in love, you 
would know that the loved one can do any¬ 
thing—anything and everything. Good night, 
Zemzem!” 

And she slept quietly, fearlessly, with neither 
dream nor nightmare, while down the road 
from Terek el-Bey the Thief of Bagdad 
spurred his great black stallion through the 
night, through the green and yellow of young 


282 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


morning, at last arriving at Bagdad and de¬ 
manding entrance with a loud voice. 

A yellow-skinned, flat-nosed, iron-capped 
warrior appeared on the wall and looked 
down. 

“Go away!” he said in his loutish Mongol 
speech. “The gates of Bagdad are closed un¬ 
til after the wedding.” 

“Whose wedding?” 

“The wedding of Cham Sheng, the Great 
Dragon, and Zobeid, daughter of the Caliph.” 

The man withdrew; returned as Ahmed 
leaned from his horse, rattling at the gate, beat¬ 
ing against it with the hilt of his sword, shout¬ 
ing noisily and insolently: 

“Let me in, let me in, dog-snouted Mongol 
pig! Hey, there, let me in, O most unbeautiful 
yellow pimple bereft of all the virtues!” 

The other raised his battle-axe threateningly. 

“I gave you fair words,” he said. “Now I 
give you fair warning. If you do not go away, 
immediately, quietly, like a decent lad, by the 
tribal gods of my clan, I shall ...” 

“Pah!” sneered Ahmed. “Powerless gods— 
the gods of your clan! Swinish gods for a> 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 283 


swinish race! Pot-bellied, yellow-skinned, slit¬ 
eyed, ridiculous, indecent Mongol gods! Wait! 
Hold your hand a second”—as the battle-axe 
was about to come down whistling through the 
air—“and I will show you what mine own God 
can do! Allah, the One, the All-Powerful! 
Look, Mongol pig! Behold the blessed mira¬ 
cle!” 

And, the thought popping into his brain, his 
fingers obeying the thought, he dipped them 
deeply into the magic silver box that was filled 
to the brim with the tiny seeds—the wishing 
seeds—the seeds from the Tree of Righteous 
hut Unfulfilled Desires. 

He sprinkled the seeds thickly on the ground. 

He spoke hurriedly, fervently: 

“O Allah! I want soldiers! Mounted, armed 
soldiers! Brave Moslem soldiers! Fearless 
soldiers, Arabs and Turks and Moors and 
Egyptians—soldiers from all the lands of 
Islam—to protect Bagdad from Mongol dese¬ 
cration—to save the ancient city—to save Zo- 
beid! Soldiers I want—numerous as the waves 
of the sea, the sand grains of the desert!” 

And suddenly the Mongol captain’s sneer 


284 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


changed into a stare of incredulity, a grimace 
of surprise, fear, horror, as, springing from 
the ground like great flowers, there rose an im¬ 
mense army of mounted Moslem fighting-men, 
men of a dozen races, brandishing their weap¬ 


ons. 



i 

CHAPTER XI 






CHAPTER XI 


As the wind blew the tiny yellow seeds 
about, wherever they struck the ground other 
Moslem warriors popped out of the nowhere 
with a little puff of smoke as the only warning 
that they were coming. They were mostly on 
horseback. Rut some were on foot, and there 
was a splendid troop of desertmen riding upon 
dromedaries, nodding in their lofty, peaked, 
crimson saddles to the deep gait of their ani¬ 
mals, w r ith a cold glisten of iron and black song 
of war. 

“Allah akbar!” they cried. “Allah akbar! 
Din! Din! Fateh Mohammed!” 

They came like the whirlwind; hacking at the 
gate with their battle-axes and splintering it; 
horses and camels prancing and rearing, weap¬ 
ons glittering in the sun, burnooses of all col¬ 
ors floating in the breeze. 

“On!” they cried. “Ride on for the Faith! 

287 


288 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Allah is most great! Kill—kill—in the name 
of the Prophet!” 

Crusaders, they. Warriors for Islam. Men 
of great courage. Noble souls. 

Noble souls? 

Here is a disputable point. 

For the ancient Arab chronicle from which 
we derive the tale of the Thief of Bagdad in¬ 
terrupts the narrative here to make the follow¬ 
ing rather interesting comment: 

“To this day the descendants of these war¬ 
riors live in Bagdad, Damascus, and through¬ 
out Arabistan. Many of them use the family 
names of Ibn Kubbut and Ibn Zura, which 
means “Son of the Seed,” in proof of their ex¬ 
traordinary paternal ancestry. Those who en¬ 
tered Bagdad with Ahjned filled the places of 
the men killed by the Mongol horde. But 
while they made good soldiers and later on 
good husbands and fathers, the Moslem priests 
and theologians have never been quite sure if 
they or their descendants can lay claim to hav¬ 
ing a soul. 

“For consider how Allah, so as to prepare 



\ 















THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 289 


for the future mission of Mohammed, created 
Adam! 

“Adam was created out of God’s will. Some 
traditions say that the head of Adam when 
first shaped reached the sky, and they also say 
that Adam was so named because his color was 
red, like wheat; for wheat is called ‘adameJi 
in the classic Arabic, the which is the language 
of the One God. The creation of Adam oc¬ 
curred on Friday, the tenth of the month 
Mohurrun, at the eleventh hour, at the rising of 
the first degree of Aries, Saturn being in the 
same constellation, and Mars in Capricorn. 
God then asked the Angels to kneel before 
Adam, and all obeyed except Iblis, who thus 
became Shaitan, the Devil, the Fallen Angel. 
Then God created Eve. But Iblis, seeing that 
for one crime he had forfeited all the merit of 
his former obedience, determined to do Adam 
any injury in his power. Now Adam was in 
Paradise, where Iblis could not enter. At 
length, however, as is detailed in history and 
tradition, by art and the assistance of a pea¬ 
cock stationed on the walls of Paradise as a 
guardian and a serpent who was the sentinel 


290 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


at the northern gate, Iblis entered. It is 
furthermore related how Iblis tempted Adam 
and Eve—as all the world knows—and how 
Adam, driven out of the garden of Eden, ex¬ 
claimed: ‘O Allah! Why didst Thou endow 
me with a soul? For had I been without a 
soul. Thou couldst have neither blamed nor 
punished me for giving way to temptation!’ 
And then Adam wept—this happened on a 
mountain in Hindustan, where Adam and Eve, 
after the Fall, were driven from Paradise, on 
Friday, the fifth of the month Nisan—and 
from the tears he shed sprang up pepper, car- 
damums, and cinnamon, while from the grief 
in his soul sprang the clouds, the weeds, the 
desert jackals, and the scavenger crows. 

“Not on all these points do the wise theolo¬ 
gians agree. But there is no argument about 
God having given a soul to Adam, nor that, for 
the sake of the salvation of his soul, He later 
on sent Mohammed amongst the mortals as 
His Messenger. 

“But the warriors who rode with Ahmed 
into Bagdad were not the descendants of Adam, 
but the descendants of seeds. Thus riseth the 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 291 


question—had they souls, or were they merely 
realized segments, materialized fractions of 
Ahmed’s imagination? Here is the moot point 
in the controversy; and we repeat that to this 
day many respectable Moslem theologians re¬ 
fuse to admit that the descendants of these 
seeds, the members of the families of Ibn Kub- 
but and Ibn Zura, are endowed with Allah’s 
excellent and blessed spirit. . . 

So the ancient Arabic chronicle goes on for 
a number of pages. Not that the Mongol cap¬ 
tain cared about their souls either way, as, 
open-mouthed, frightened, he watched the ter¬ 
rible miracle of their appearance from the bat¬ 
tlements. 

He jumped down; ran away as fast as he 
could, spreading the alarm throughout Bag¬ 
dad, shouting loudly: 

“Fly for your lives, O Mongols! A great 
magician has come! He summons armies, in¬ 
vincible fightingmen, from the very bowels of 
the earth!” 

“Fly for your lives! Fly for your lives!” 
came echoing shouts as the Moslem warriors, 
Ahmed at their head, rode through the gates. 


292 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


They darted on like winged phantoms; old 
and young; Arabs and Turks, Egyptians and 
Moors and Turkomans; men of colossal pro¬ 
portions, strange and terrible figures erect in 
their square silver stirrups, with heads thrown 
hack, hair streaming loose in the wind, sabres 
waved aloft, lances at the carry; and small, 
beardless youngsters, perched like monkeys on 
their high saddles, but using their weapons with 
the same swish and sweep and surge as their 
elders. Over their shining silver armor their 
burnooses, red and purple and green and yel¬ 
low and blue, mingled into a gorgeous rainbow 
as the cavalcade crossed the Square of the One- 
Eyed Jew; then dissolved to form fresh, au¬ 
dacious color combinations as the riders split 
into smaller groups, galloping down side streets 
and alleys in the pursuit of the flying, panic- 
stricken Mongols, cutting down stragglers, 
rounding up whole companies of the yellow¬ 
skinned, iron-capped horde, putting them to 
the sword for the Faith. 

“Kill! Kill—in the name of the Prophet!” 

The savage war cry was everywhere. Enor¬ 
mously peaking, bloating, spreading, it rever- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 293 


berated from streets to Mosques, from Mosques 
to houses, from houses to cellars and cisterns 
where the citizens of Bagdad were hiding in 
fear and trembling before the Scourge of God. 
They heard; wondered; came cautiously out of 
their hiding-places; looked. Then, beholding 
the triumphant advance of the liberators, they 
picked up weapons at random and rushed out. 

Here and there they killed a lonely Mongol. 
Ten minutes later they were convinced, every 
last one of them, that it was their own bravery 
which was bringing victory, and they flatly dis¬ 
counted the fact that, without Ahmed’s splen¬ 
did miracle, they would have continued to sub¬ 
mit to the Mongol yoke as sheepishly as the 
night before. 

The chronicle goes on to say how the citizens 
of Bagdad scurried in the wake of the liber¬ 
ators, killing wounded Mongols, nor risking 
their precious lives overmuch. 

Loudly they shouted: 

“Kill! Kill the Mongols! Reduce them to 
ashes! Cut them in two! Hash them to pulp! 
Drive them away! Drink their blood! De- 


294 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


stroy them root and branch! Annihilate them 
utterly!” 

And it is interesting to observe that those 
who gave the loudest and most blood-curdling 
shouts were the men who, on the night before, 
when the Mongols had attacked, had left their 
very women and children to the invaders’ mercy 
in their haste to bore like rats into subterranean 
hiding-places. 

Ahmed rode at the head of his army. 

“Allah akbar!” he cried. “God is great!” 

And as he galloped up the broad avenue 
that led to the palace of the Caliph, again and 
again he dipped his hand into the silver box, 
sprinkling the little yellow seeds on the ground; 
again and again warriors rose, until their num¬ 
bers were like the stars in the Milky Way, and 
there was no hope for the Mongols, though here 
and there they rallied and gave battle with all 
their ferocious Mongol courage. 

A few escaped the carnage. Quickly they 
ran to the palace and brought the news. It 
spread like powder under spark. 

Down in the dungeon where the Caliph of 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 295 


the Faithful and the Princes of Persia and 
Hindustan were kept prisoners, was rejoicing. 

“I always knew,” said the Prince of India, 
‘‘that my divine ancestors would not let me 
perish! When I return to Hindustan I shall 
sacrifice seventeen thousand youths of excel¬ 
lent family to Doorga, the Great Mother!” 

“And I,” said the Persian, “as soon as I leave 
this cell, shall dine on a roasted peacock, stuffed 
with white grapes, and three bottles of foreign 
wine. Incidentally”—turning to the Caliph— 
“now that the Mongol is out of the way, or at 
least about to be out of the way, I wish to re¬ 
affirm my claims to your daughter’s hand . . 

“Not at all!” interrupted the Prince of In¬ 
dia. “Not at all! It is I who . . 

“Do shut up, both of you!” exclaimed the 
Caliph, for once in his life forgetting what he 
owed to his kingly breeding. “I would not 
have either one of you as son-in-law. My 
daughter shall marry the man who has recon¬ 
quered Bagdad, and I care not if he be Moslem 
or Jew, Christian or Buddhist, nor if he he 
white or green, thief or emperor !’* 

Thus spoke the voices of Asia’s mighty po- 


296 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


tentates down in the cellar, while up in the 
tower room of the palace, not far from Zo- 
beid’s apartment, Wong K’ai asked his master 
to escape while there still was a chance. But 
the Mongol Prince shook his head stubbornly. 
He pointed at his ancestral tablets. 

“My race is eternal, invincible!” he pro¬ 
nounced with somber, grim dignity. “I flee 
from neither gods nor devils.” 

“But even you, O Great Dragon,” implored 
Wong K’ai, “cannot fight against miracles! 
Look!”—pointing from the window—“ever 
more warriors arise from the ground! Come! 
There is still time to . . .” 

“No!” 

“Please, please, O Great Dragon!” 

And when at last the Prince decided to take 
Wong K’ai’s advice, it was too late. Already 
the Moslems had overrun the palace grounds, 
cleaving their way through the serried ranks 
of the Manchu shock troops who resisted brave¬ 
ly. But there was no hope for the latter. Most 
of the Mongol and Tartar guards stationed in 
the palace—only a few, really the Prince’s 
body servants, remained behind—reinforced 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 297 


the Manchus. But foot by foot, second by sec¬ 
ond, the forest of spears fell before the forest 
of Moslem swords, Ahmed always in the van, 
spurring his horse into the thick of the fight, 
his sabre whirling like a flail. 

The Mongol Prince watched from the win¬ 
dow. He shrugged his shoulders. He turned 
to his ancestral tablets. He kowtowed deeply. 

“Accept, O spirits of my ancestors,’’ he said 
solemnly, “mine own spirit. Today I leap the 
Dragon Gate. I accept defeat. Yet”—and 
his voice rose proudly—“I know that others of 
my race will come after me, that again and 
again the world will quail and fall before the 
Mongol scourge!” 

Calmly, unhurriedly, he bared his neck and 
knelt on the ground. 

“Wong K’ai,” he went on, “it is now your 
elegant and respectable duty to cut off my 
head!” 

“No, no, O Great Dragon!” 

“I command it!” 

Wong K’ai sighed. 

“Listen is obey!” he murmured. 

Already he had unsheathed his curved swcid 


298 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


and was about to bring it down with a full 
swing, when the door opened and, followed by 
half a dozen guards, Fount-in-the-Forest 
rushed in, shouting excitedly: 

“Oh—listen—listen! There is a way! You 
can escape! The magic flying carpet!” 

“By the Buddha!” exclaimed Cham Sheng. 
“You are right!” He rose. He turned to the 
guards. “Bring me the magic rug!” And to 
Wong K’ai: “I shall take Zobeid with me. 
Together she and I will fly away to the far 
North, to Mongolia, my own country, where 
not even these miraculous warriors will dare 
follow!” 

What was ultimately destined to save Zo¬ 
beid was the fact that this was a palace of the 
Orient, a Moslem house where there is no pri¬ 
vacy for laughter nor for grief, not even for 
despair, where there is a peep-hole in every 
wall and door and curtain and ceiling, where 
in every room there are invisible, watching eyes 
and invisible, listening ears. So, had not the 
steely clank of the battle outside drowned all 
other sounds, the Prince might have heard a 
rustle of silken garments and the noise of bare 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 299 


feet pattering away as Zemzem, who had over¬ 
heard the plot from an adjoining alcove, ran to 
her mistress and told her. 

The latter was alone in her apartment. For 
a few seconds earlier, looking from the window 
and seeing their comrades go down before the 
Moslem scimitars, the soldiers detailed to watch 
her had joined their countrymen in their last 
stand. 

“Come!” cried Zemzem. “Down the stair¬ 
case and through the back door into the garden 
—I know the way—follow me, Heaven-Born!” 

She was out of the room and down the stairs. 
Zobeid was a few feet behind her. Zemzem had 
already reached the corner of the lower stair¬ 
case when from the opposite direction came 
Cham Sheng with Wong K’ai and the Mon¬ 
gols who carried the magic carpet. They 
stepped directly between Zobeid and Zemzem. 
The latter was on the point of retracing her 
steps, of helping her mistress with whatever 
strength she had—and there was more than 
one young Arab soldier and servant about the 
palace who, romantically inclined, could tell 
tales about Zemzem’s scratching, clawing fin- 


300 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


ger-nails—when Zobeid motioned to her to 
continue on her way to the garden. 

Zemzem understood the silent message. A 
battle-axe whizzed past her head, missed her 
by less than an inch, buried itself in a wall, the 
heavy palm-wood handle jerking crazily from 
side to side like an ill-regulated pendulum. By 
this time she had ducked, had run down the re¬ 
maining flight of stairs, and, through the back 
door, into the garden. 

She made straight for the crimson, clanking 
turmoil that was coiling everywhere, straight 
for the thick of the fight where the Mongols 
were desperately trying to stem the Arab at¬ 
tack, with the wicked whine of spears cutting 
through the air, with dagger points nosing for 
the chinks in body armor, and shield crashing 
against shield in charge and parry. She raised 
her voice high above the savage, guttural war 
cries and the shrieks of the dying as swords and 
lances struck home: 

“Ahmed! O Ahmed! Thief of Bagdad!” 

She saw him, fighting on foot now. She 
tried to slip through the forest of forged iron, 
to reach his side. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 301 


Upstairs, Zobeid was cornered. She stood 
erect and proud. The Prince of the Mongols 
bowed ironically, spoke ironically: 

“It is—alas!—necessary that you accompany 
me without the proper marriage ceremonies. 
They shall be performed as soon as we arrive 
in my country.” He stepped on the rug and 
extended a slim yellow hand: “Be pleased to 
join me, Zobeid!” 

“No!” she exclaimed. “No!” 

“Ah!” he smiled, “can it be, indeed, that you 
do not love me?” 

“I hate you!” 

“Hate, too, spices the sauce of passion. 
Come!” His voice grew stern, and as she re¬ 
ceded a step: “It is useless to resist, Crusher 
of Hearts. For consider the ancient proverb: 
On the egg combating with the stone, the yolk 
came out.” 

“No, no, no!” she cried again. 

“I regret,” he rejoined, “that I shall have to 
use force.” 

He gave an order to the Mongol soldiers. 
Zobeid resisted. But she was helpless. They 
lifted her on the rug. They held her there. 


302 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Already the Prince had spoken to the rug: 
“O magic flying carpet, carry us to . . ” 
when suddenly his words were cut off in mid¬ 
air. 

For there came a shrill, high, triumphant 
war cry: 

“Allah akbar! Allah akbar!’ 3 and, the next 
moment, invisible hands came out of the no¬ 
where ; invisible hands sent the Mongol soldiers 
spinning in all directions; invisible hands 
struck Cham Sheng square between the eyes; 
invisible hands picked up the Princess Zobeid 
and carried her away, out of the room, up the 
staircase; while invisible lips gave again the 
shrill, mocking war cry: 

“Allah akbar! Allah akbar!' 3 

Invisible hands and lips. The hands and 
lips of Ahmed, the Thief of Bagdad. 

For a minute earlier, down in the garden, 
Zemzem had reached his side through the tor¬ 
rid, clanking forest of weapons. From be¬ 
neath the dropping, swishing, crimson blades 
she had cried out to him, and it had not needed 
more than her first words: “Zobeid—the flying 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 303 


carpet—hurry—O hurry!” to make him under¬ 
stand what was happening. 

He catapulted himself toward the palace 
gate. A giant Tartar captain stepped square 
into his path. Lance then against lance. 
Thrust and cut against thrust and cut. Skill 
and strength against skill and strength. The 
lance jerking up, skidding from the ground 
with a dry rasp of its bamboo shaft, lunging 
viciously. The Thief of Bagdad wheeling nim¬ 
bly out of harm’s way while his sword, thrice 
whirled round the head, descended like light¬ 
ning in a slanting direction. Forged steel bit¬ 
ing through flesh and muscle and tissue and 
bone. A darkening blotch of blood spreading 
grotesque arabesques over dragon-embroidered 
tunic. A choked death gurgle. And Ahmed 
leaping over the fallen man; Zemzem by his 
side, leaping parallel, like a small terrier by 
the side of a lean-flanked greyhound. 

On the threshold of the palace was a wall of 
steel-bossed arm shields, topped by a wall of 
yellow, high-cheeked faces, a wall of glittering, 
oval-bladed lances: Cham Sheng’s picked 


304 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


Manchu bodyguard, here to fight for their 
master to their last drop of blood. 

They were too many for one man to attack 
and defeat. 

Ahmed stopped for a moment. Then he re¬ 
membered the Cloak of Invisibility which he 
had found at the bottom of the Midnight Sea, 
wrapped about the magic silver box: the cloak 
to guard him against the jealousies and envies 
of the unrighteous. 

He tore it from his waist shawl. He flung 
it quickly about his shoulders. He could still 
see the Manchu warriors. But could they see 
him? 

He wondered. The very next second he 
knew. For one of them, who had been on the 
point of thrusting at him with his lance, 
dropped the weapon and stared in open- 
mouthed, rather ludicrous astonishment. 

“Where—why—how-” he stammered. 

“Where has he gone to?” 

He moved away from the threshold to search 
for this man who had so miraculously vanished 
into thin air; and Ahmed used the opportunity 
to slip through, into the palace, and up the 



THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 305 


stairs where—as we related before—he sent the 
Mongols spinning, smote Cham Sheng across 
the face, picked up Zobeid where she stood on 
the flying carpet, and ran away with her, carry¬ 
ing her high in his arms. 

She did not see him. The cloak hid him so 
completely. But love needs no eyes. Some¬ 
how, by the thrill and tumult in her heart, she 
felt who he was; she knew; and she laughed, 
happily, while the Mongols, led by their Prince 
—their first surprise and stupor over—dashed 
after them, following the sound of Ahmed’s 
rushing feet, the sound of Zobeid’s high laugh¬ 
ter. 

But by this time their comrades down in the 
garden had died to the last man beneath the 
Moslem swords. The Arabs came charging into 
the palace. There was a play and counterplay 
of bare blades and many individual heroic 
deeds, by both Mongols and Arabs, of which 
the ancient chronicle makes much, until at last 
—though Arab and Mongol historians, while 
both admitting the same result, differ as to the 
cause, the former claiming that it was due to 
their bravery and their faith in Islam, while the 


306 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


latter say they were outnumbered ten to one 
and demand with rather pertinent irony what 
would have happened to their enemies had it 
not been for Ahmed's miraculous seeds—until 
at last the Arabs were victorious and all the 
Mongols were dead. 

All except two: Cham Sheng and Wong 
K’ai, who protected his master with his body. 

Already swords were raised to cut them 
down when a high voice—it was that of Bird- 
of-Evil, Ahmed’s old partner in knavery and 
thievery, who had just arrived on the scene— 
declared shrilly that such a death was too good 
for them. 

“String them up!” he yelled. 

“A splendid idea—by Allah and by Allah!” 

So through one of the windows in an upper 
room they stuck a tall, stout pole, fastening it 
securely; and, a few minutes later, Cham Sheng 
and Wong K’ai were hanging by their necks, 
slowly strangling to death. 

Such was the end of the Prince of the Mon¬ 
gols. But even at the very moment of final 
oblivion, while his soul was already leaping the 
Dragon Gate to join the souls of his ancestors 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 307 


near the Seven Yellow Springs, his lips, blue 
and twisted and tortured into a painful grim¬ 
ace, uttered the proud boast of his race: 

“Others of my race will come after me! 
Again and again the world will quail and fall 
before the Mongol scourge!” 

The boast was not heard—would have been 
ridiculed had it been heard. 

“Tiger!”—a little, golden-skinned Arab 
slave girl cried down in the garden, looking up 
at the Mongol Prince’s dangling corpse. “Pah! 
Paper tiger with paper teeth!” 

“God be praised!” chanted the priests. 

“God be praised!” shouted the warriors. 

“God be praised indeed!” echoed the Caliph 
of Bagdad, who had been released from his dun¬ 
geon, as had the Princes of Persia and India. 
He turned to a majordomo. “Where is this 
mighty hero who freed us from the Mongol 
scourge?” 

“He is with your daughter, Heaven-Born. 
Up there—in the throne room.” 

“Tell him to come to me and accept my 
kingly thanks. By the way—who is he?” 


308 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


The majordomo bowed deeply, stammered 
in embarrassment: 

“May the Heaven-Bom forgive the lowest 
of his slaves. But the man who freed us from 
the Mongol yoke is none other than the Thief 
of Bagdad!” 

“No longer Thief of Bagdad!” laughed the 
Caliph. “But heir to the throne of Bagdad 
and, after my death, by the token of his mar¬ 
riage to my daughter, caliph of all the Faith¬ 
ful, Shadow of Allah upon Earth, King of the 
Sovereigns of the Universe, and Supreme 
Buler in Islam!” 

And “Heir to the throne of Bagdad!” he 
greeted Ahmed when the latter, side by side 
with Zobeid, came into the room. 

He overwhelmed him with his gratitude, 
kissing him on both cheeks, elevating him on the 
spot to various ranks, titles, and splendid emol¬ 
uments. The courtiers and soldiers, the priests 
and the Princes of India and Persia followed 
suit, kissing him, embracing him, shaking his 
hands, until Ahmed, blushing with confusion, 
stepped on the magic flying rug, his arm still 
about Zobeid’s waist. 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 309 


“I am awfully sorry,” he said, “but I shall 
have to leave you. You see, a few moments 
ago this worthy”—pointing at a green-tur- 
baned priest, the very priest who had first sent 
him on his journey in the search of life’s hap¬ 
piness—“united Zobeid and me in holy matri¬ 
mony. And now, with the permission of all of 
you or without it, we are going on our honey¬ 
moon.” He turned to the magic rug. “Fly!” 
he ordered. “Fly away, O rug!” 

“Where to?” asked the Caliph. 

“Up to the moon! Up to the land of hap¬ 
piness and laughter and sweetness and love and 
little children!” 

“Drop in on me on your way,” cried the 
Prince of Persia, his heart warming with gen¬ 
erosity as the rug rose into the air, “and I shall 
have such a feast prepared for you that it will 
go down in history!” 

“Visit me at Puri!” shouted the Prince of 
India, not to be outdone by the Persian in gen¬ 
erosity, craning his neck as the rug rose still 
higher, “and I shall introduce you to my divine 
cousin, the goddess Doorga!” 

Ahmed did not reply. He waved his left 


310 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


arm—his right was still about Zobeid’s waist— 
and so the flying rug carried them out of the 
palace, out of the garden, out of Bagdad, high 
through the air, up to the moon, on their wed¬ 
ding journey, where many fantastic and ex¬ 
traordinary adventures befell them. 

“But this,” says the ancient Arab chronicle, 
“is another story. . . 

THE END 





PUBLISHER’S NOTE 


So much curiosity has been aroused by the 
marvellous production of “The Thief of Bag¬ 
dad,” that we asked Mr. Fairbanks to tell our 
readers some of the production secrets. This 
article by Mr. Arthur Zellner is the result of 
that request. 

Production Sidelights on “The Thief of 
Bagdad,” by Arthur J. Zellner 

For an ordinary picture a scenario is writ¬ 
ten, a cast assembled, a technical staff instruct¬ 
ed to prepare plans—scenes taken and film 
edited all in five to ten weeks, according to con¬ 
ditions under which companies work. 

For “The Thief of Bagdad,” twenty-two 
people spent eight months in research work be¬ 
fore a single scene was shot. 

311 


812 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


This one difference summarizes the vast gulf 
which lies between programme pictures and a 
stupenduous production like “The Thief of 
Bagdad.” 

Even to have conceived the idea of filming 
the Arabian Nights’ stories was considered a 
bold departure, but Mr. Fairbanks has a pen¬ 
chant for the unusual. 

When he first decided to make this picture, 
he realized that fantasy, being imaginary and 
elusive, is the most difficult thing in the world 
to picture, for as soon as you build and photo¬ 
graph a thing you give it substance and reality. 
This, by the way, was the fundamental problem 
of “The Thief of Bagdad.” 

The old stories of the day of Haroun al Ras- 
chid, or Aaron the Just, were in imaginary 
locales—but being glorious fairy tales in which 
the story-tellers’ imaginations ran riot, the 
scenes had to be gorgeous in investiture and of 
heroic proportions. Here the problem became 
acute: how could a thing be fantastic and still 
be of super-substantial size and character? 
Think of the paradoxical instruction to the 
technicians—“Make these sets magnificently 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 313 


impressive in size and character, but preserve 
the idea of unreality.” 

How was this finally done? 

By constructing for the City of Bagdad a 
concrete floor six acres in size and giving this 
floor a highly enameled finish, so that it would 
reflect light. Then, when the buildings were 
photographed, light was shot straight against 
the base lines of the buildings. Naturally, the 
light source being low, shadows grew darker as 
they ascended the structures. The light at the 
bases gave the massive sets the appearance of 
floating or hanging rather than of resting 
solidly upon the ground, thus toning down the 
idea of their bald substantial reality. 

The color that would give the best photo¬ 
graphic effect with this particular system of 
lighting was a matter of considerable experi¬ 
ment. Before a single scene was shot a test set 
was built and every tone and color was tried, 
including many metallic sheen colorings. A 
total of 20,000 feet of film was “shot” in these 
experiments—the equivalent of four complete 
five-reel pictures. 

It was overcoming just such unique prob- 


314 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


lems that gave this production an interest that 
spread all through the moving picture colony 
and kept the attention of all Hollywood cen¬ 
tered upon the Fairbanks studio during the 
whole fourteen months of production. 

The casting of the picture also presented 
some queer phases. 

It was Mr. Fairbanks’ idea that to use people 
with whom audiences were too familiar would 
detract from the value of the characterizations. 
For instance, if the part of the Princess had 
been played by an actress associated in the pub¬ 
lic mind with certain types of parts, the audi¬ 
ence would subconsciously have thought of her 
as they had previously known her. Hence, she 
would not have convincingly represented a 
Mesopotamian Princess. That is why a com¬ 
paratively unknown player was chosen for the 
part. It was not easy to find her, either. 

The Mongol Prince, likewise, was a difficult 
part to cast. It was what is known in studio 
parlance as “an acting part,” which means that 
looking the part is not enough. It required 
acting of a high order. How to find an actor 
who could play this difficult part and still not 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 315 


be associated in the public mind as a familiar 
personality—an actor who would seem to be 
just what the program called him—a Mongol 
Prince! Mr. Fairbanks found him in Japan. 
He was Nippon’s greatest Shakespearian actor 
whose full name is So-Jin-Hayakama. 

Some of the characters were not such as made 
heavy histrionic demands, for these parts 
“types” were selected. It is estimated that 
nineteen different nationalities were represent¬ 
ed in the list. 

The feature of this production that in the 
largest sense differentiates it from any picture 
ever made is the element of magic introduced 
through the medium of mechanical and photo¬ 
graphic effects. I refer to the Magic Flying 
Carpet, the Winged Horse, the scenes beneath 
the floor of the sea, the Crystal Realm, the 
Cloak of Invisibility, the Valley of Monsters 
and the Sea of Midnight. 

To explain in detail the manner in which 
each of these things was accomplished would 
not only destroy the illusion to some extent, 
but would require a heavily technical exposi- 


816 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


tion. However, some of the sid< fights touch¬ 
ing them may be of interest. 

It was Mr. Fairbanks’ habit t come to the 
studio bubbling over with enthusiasm /bout 
some idea that had occurred to him the night 
before. However wildly improbable or infeas¬ 
ible it might seem, our staff was imbued wit;; 
the idea that “Somewhere there is a way,” and 
immediately proceeded to find it. 

There was that memorable day when the 
idea of the Winged Horse scenes was born i 
Douglas’ fertile mind! 

A two-ton horse, to fly through the clouds, 
wings flapping and mane flying, bearing on its 
back the redoubtable hero! Could it be done? 
You certainly couldn’t suspend any such weight 
on a wire that would withstand the movement 
and vibration of a clumsy gallop, when to snap 
it meant a fall to death for both horse and 
rider. 

Of course, it was done, and as nearly every¬ 
body knows now, the technical staff simply 
took advantage of the principle that a thing 
painted black has no actinic value, and by com- 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 317 


bining this principle t ith the use of an incline, 
accomplished the seemingly impossible. 

Then there* was the Magic Carpet. It was 
required that a Carpet floating over the heads 
of the populace should soar with the Thief and 
the Princess above the housetops of Bagdad, in 
and out of high arc! s and finally across the 
desert and disappear up the silver path to the 
moon. I remember distinctly that not a single 
member or the staff said, “It can’t be done.” 
It was done. Mr. Fairbanks doesn’t like us to 
speak at cost, because he feels that the loyal 
effoF that went into, this picture cannot be 
reduced iu dollars and cents. I think, how¬ 
ever, that merely as an index to the seriousness 
of the problems involved he will not object to 
your knowing that it cost over $78,000 to fly the 
Magic Carpet. 

This involved the erection of a specially con¬ 
structed steel arm working on a revolving base 
and so built that the rug could describe a full 
ninety-degree arc within range of the ingeni¬ 
ously placed camera platform. 

Perhaps the most extraordinary, though not 
the most spectacular, effect in the picture is the 


318 THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 


single scene on the magic rope where Mr. Fair¬ 
banks on an unsupported rope deliberately 
turns down the top of th showing that it 

is not hung by a wire. This effect lias baffled 
scores of experts, and one man writing in a 
scientific monthly explained the trick as having 
been done by suspending the rope by a wire 
through the center of the >pe and i 
from the top. If this were done, it would ] 
been impossible for M Fairba to h 
turned down the top of the rope as he did. 

Among the Monsters hat the * is called 
upon to fight, the Dragon is a animal, but 
the Bat and Spider are mechanical. The Spi¬ 
der is a wonderful example of the skill of mo¬ 
tion picture technicians. It is built of wood, 
metal and wire, and eight hundred and forty- 
six different applications of leverage principles 
were necessary to give this mechanical spider a 
life-like propulsion in flying and crawling. 

The undersea Realm of Glass was another 
idea that set the technical brains a mark that 
was hard to hit. 

The design for this was painted by a famous 
artist and was a highly fanciful scene of lacey 


THE THIEF OF BAGDAD 319 


po i v s varied with stalactities and stalagmites 
oi spun or blown glass; delicate and dainty 
tracings in parts and heavier fantastic shapes 
in otl icr Glass being brittle and easily break¬ 
able, i was not practicabljfto have it blown in 
a factory in such intricacy delicate patterns 
and shipped from a distance. Therefore, a 
family of glass-blowers Was installed in a spe¬ 
cially constructed building and worked for 
three months blowing the glass for this setting. 

When one sits in a comfortable theatre and 
sees the beautiful story of “The Thief of Bag- 
da so smoothly and beautifully unfolded 
th is nothing to suggest the work and worry 
i tache and unceasing effort that made 

it possible. 

it accomplishes Mr. Fairbanks’ am- 
bition i/O attain an artistic success close enough 
to the hearts of the people to make it also a 
wonderful dramatic entertainment, it is easy 
enough to forget the difficulties that beset the 
accomplishment, for here, indeed, we feel “the 
end justifies the means.” 






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